“Maman, maman!” cried the little fellow, now striving and fighting to get back to her, where she lay; he fought so lustily that the Squire had to put him down, and he crawled to the poor inanimate body, behind which sat Molly, holding the head; whilst Robinson rushed away for water, wine, and more womankind.

“Poor thing, poor thing!” said the Squire, bending over her, and crying afresh over her suffering. “She is but young, Molly, and she must ha’ loved him dearly.”

“To be sure!” said Molly quickly. She was untying the bonnet, and taking off the worn, but neatly-mended gloves; there was the soft luxuriant black hair, shading the pale, innocent face,—the little, notable-looking brown hands, with the wedding-ring for sole ornament. The child clustered his fingers round one of hers, and nestled up against her with his plaintive cry, getting more and more into a burst of wailing: “Maman, maman!” At the growing acuteness of his imploring, her hand moved, her lips quivered, consciousness came partially back. She did not open her eyes; but great, heavy tears stole out from beneath her eyelashes. Molly held her head against her own breast; and they tried to give her wine, which she shrank from; water, which she did not reject, that was all. At last she tried to speak. “Take me away,” she said, “into the dark! Leave me alone!”

So Molly and the women lifted her up and carried her away, and laid her on the bed, in the best bed- chamber in the house, and darkened the already-shaded light. She was like an unconscious corpse herself, in that she offered neither assistance nor resistance to all that they were doing. But, just before Molly was leaving the room, to take up her watch outside the door, she felt rather than heard that Aimée spoke to her.

“Food—bread-and-milk for baby!” But, when they brought her food herself, she only shrank away and turned her face to the wall without a word. In the hurry, the child had been left with Robinson and the Squire. For some unknown, but most fortunate reason, he took a dislike to Robinson’s red face and hoarse voice, and showed a most decided preference for his grandfather. When Molly came down, she found the Squire feeding the child, with more of peace upon his face than there had been for all these days. The boy was every now and then leaving off taking his bread-and-milk, to show his dislike to Robinson by word and gesture: a proceeding which only amused the old servant, while it highly delighted the more favoured Squire.

“She is lying very still, but she will neither speak nor eat. I don’t even think she is crying,” said Molly, volunteering this account; for the Squire was, for the moment, too much absorbed in his grandson to ask many questions.

Robinson put in his word: “Dick Hayward, he’s Boots at the Hamley Arms, says the coach she come by started at five this morning from London, and the passengers said she’d been crying a deal on the road, when she thought folks were not noticing; and she never came in to meals with the rest, but stopped feeding her child.”

“She’ll be tired out; we must let her rest,” said the Squire. “And I do believe this little chap is going to sleep in my arms. God bless him!” But Molly stole out, and sent off a lad to Hollingford with a note to her father. Her heart had warmed towards the poor stranger, and she felt uncertain as to what ought to be the course pursued in her case.

She went up from time to time to look at the girl, scarce older than herself, who lay there with her eyes open, but as motionless as death. She softly covered her over, and let her feel the sympathetic presence from time to time; and that was all she was allowed to do. The Squire was curiously absorbed in the child, but Molly’s supreme tenderness was for the mother. Not but what she admired the sturdy, gallant, healthy little fellow, whose every limb and square-inch of clothing showed the tender and thrifty care that had been taken of him. By-and-by, the Squire said in a whisper—

“She’s not like a Frenchwoman, is she, Molly?”