 but I am afraid you will feel the
cold too much.«
    »I don't mind cold. I am not delicate, if I look so.« She quickly moved one
of the two rough chairs to the bedside, and sat down. The other as quickly moved
a part of some travelling wrapper from herself, and drew it over her, so that
her arm, in keeping it about her, rested on her shoulder.
    »You have so much the air of a kind nurse,« said the lady, smiling on her,
»that you seem as if you had come to me from home.«
    »I am very glad of it.«
    »I was dreaming of home when I woke just now. Of my old home, I mean, before
I was married.«
    »And before you were so far away from it.«
    »I have been much farther away from it than this; but then I took the best
part of it with me, and missed nothing. I felt solitary as I dropped asleep
here, and, missing it a little, wandered back to it.«
    There was a sorrowfully affectionate and regretful sound in her voice, which
made her visitor refrain from looking at her for the moment.
    »It is a curious chance which at last brings us together, under this
covering in which you have wrapped me,« said the visitor, after a pause; »for do
you know, I think I have been looking for you, some time.«
    »Looking for me?«
    »I believe I have a little note here, which I was to give to you whenever I
found you. This is it. Unless I greatly mistake, it is addressed to you. Is it
not?«
    The lady took it, and said yes, and read it. Her visitor watched her as she
did so. It was very short. She flushed a little as she put her lips to her
visitor's cheek, and pressed her hand.
    »The dear young friend to whom he presents me, may be a comfort to me at
some time, he says. She is truly a comfort to me, the first time I see her.«
    »Perhaps you don't,« said the visitor, hesitating - »perhaps you don't know
my story? Perhaps he never told you my story?«
    »No.«
    »O, no, why should he! I have scarcely the right to tell it myself at
present, because I have been entreated not to do so. There is
