that Nello had left the hut, and no one but Patrasche divined that Nello
had gone to face starvation and misery alone.

The mill kitchen was very warm; great logs crackled and flamed on the
hearth; neighbours came in for a glass of wine and a slice of the fat
goose baking for supper. Alois, gleeful and sure of her playmate back
on the morrow, bounded and sang and tossed back her yellow hair. Baas
Cogez, in the fulness of his heart, smiled on her through moistened
eyes, and spoke of the way in which he would befriend her favourite
companion; the house-mother sat with calm, contented face at the
spinning-wheel; the cuckoo in the clock chirped mirthful hours. Amidst
it all Patrasche was bidden with a thousand words of welcome to tarry
there a cherished guest. But neither peace nor plenty could allure him
where Nello was not.

When the supper smoked on the board, and the voices were loudest
and gladdest, and the Christ-child brought choicest gifts to Alois,
Patrasche, watching always an occasion, glided out when the door was
unlatched by a careless new-comer, and, as swiftly as his weak and tired
limbs would bear him sped over the snow in the bitter, black night. He
had only one thought--to follow Nello. A human friend might have paused
for the pleasant meal, the cheery warmth, the cosey slumber; but that
was not the friendship of Patrasche. He remembered a bygone time, when
an old man and a little child had found him sick unto death in the
wayside ditch.

Snow had fallen freshly all the evening long; it was now nearly ten; the
trail of the boy's footsteps was almost obliterated. It took Patrasche
long to discover any scent. When at last he found it, it was lost again
quickly, and lost and recovered, and again lost and again recovered, a