Mabel's Mistake

by Ann S. Stephens

The poor child was numb and cold. Her very breath seemed turning to ice upon her lips. But for the little hound that crept up to her bosom, and lay patiently there, with its slender head laid upon her shoulder, and its limbs trembling with the cold, she would have perished. But the warmth from this little animal's body kept the vitality in her poor heart, and instead of death, a drowsiness fell upon her, which would perhaps have ended in a wakeless sleep. But just as she was sinking away into that deathly torpor from which few are aroused, a female figure came, floating like a dark bird of prey, through the storm, now obscured by the thick interlacing of naked branches, and again dimmed in her approach by the veil of virgin snow-flakes that filled the air.

The hound lifted its slender head, gave a faint whine and lay down again motionless, but with his vigilant eyes on the shadowy figure that approached. That pale face was evidently known to the dog, or he would not have rested there so peacefully, though it moved through the falling snow, like a phantom which might disappear with the slightest sound.

Close to the prostrate girl it came—that sinister, white face—and the figure stooped from under the folds of its black and ample cloak, to whisper in the cold ear of Lina French.

"Go to the house upon the hill-side. There your mother is waiting for you."

Lina struggled like one aroused from the thrall of a nightmare. The word mother had broken up the ice at her heart. She pushed the hound from her bosom, and staggering to her feet, looked to the right and left. No one was near. The pale quiver of the snow flakes, and the naked tree boughs, trembling and sighing together, was all that she could make out. But the word mother still sounded in her ear, and the sentence uttered to her sleep grew trumpet-toned, and seemed wailed back to her by the storm.

"'The house upon the hill-side!' where is it?" she cried. "Which way shall I go? Answer me, thou voice of the storm! is it north or south, to the right or left? Answer me—or if I am indeed mad, be silent and let me die!"

Then, through the drifting snow flakes that settled down heavier and heavier, there came a voice clear and musical, like the low tones of a flute, half-singing, half-speaking, which might have been the disguise of some voice that feared detection.

"To the southward—to the southward, where a hearth gives forth its white smoke, and your mother awaits her child."

Then, with a wild laugh, ending in sobs that wasted themselves on the silence, Lina sprang away southward, always with the storm beating in her face, and the snow weltering like a shroud around her feet.

Sometimes she would pause in a rift of the hills and look wistfully upon the bed of sere leaves and feathery snow, tempting her to sink down and die, with the grim hemlock boughs, plumed with snow wreaths drooping over her, and lulled by the gurgle of unseen waters wandering to the river, under their jewelled network of ice, but she resisted the impulse, and still bent her way to the south, while the little dog, so delicate and yet so faithful, rushed after her without a whine, as if he knew, gentle creature, that a cry of pain, added to her own sorrow, would be enough to smite away all her insane strength and leave her prostrate upon the white earth.