Then Laura told her all about herself, beginning at her mother's leaving her with the Motherkin, all about her new and strange experiences, about Grim, and lastly about her adventures in the woods coming to Kathie's relief. Kathie became so interested that she forgot for a moment her sorrow; but when Laura related Grim's account of little Fritz, and Kathie's own kindness to her young brother, about Grim's whisper to the woodsman, and his regret at leaving the children alone, and Laura's resolve to come to them, she could keep quiet no longer, but fell into such sobbing as Laura had never heard nor seen before. Though she had not seen the like, she knew by intuition that tenderness and patience would subdue it; so she drew Kathie's head on her own shoulder, and softly smoothed the child's brown hair; then she bathed the poor tired eyes with her handkerchief, and forced a little wine upon the sorrowful girl, and at last Kathie fell asleep.
Outside the wind was rising, the moonlight glittering; within, by the few smouldering brands, sat the two children. Laura held Kathie until her own head began to droop, and then, in each other's arms still resting, they slept the sound sleep of childhood.
When the bright beams of morning penetrated the little hut, Kathie awakened first, and rekindled the little fire.
Laura still slept; unaccustomed to so much fatigue, she needed the long rest, and as Kathie looked at the pretty silver and blue of her dress, and at the golden hair and healthful flush of her young companion's fair face, she seemed to her an angel of mercy sent to comfort her in her loneliness. For little Fritz was gone to the better land; hunger and want had been more than his poor little crippled body could bear, and Kathie's kindness could not keep life any longer in so feeble a frame. The woodsman had made a little grave in the forest for him, and there poor Kathie had gone every day, and was but returning from it the evening previous when she found Laura waiting for her.
"WITH LAURA'S HAND CLASPED OVER HERS, SHE FELT NO LONGER ALONE."
As soon as Laura had wakened, and the two children had eaten, Kathie led Laura to the place where her brother had been laid. Birds were singing gayly in the trees over his head, and Kathie had made wreaths of wild-flowers and garlands of grasses and placed them over the spot so dear to her. Together they stood silently listening to the birds' clear notes, and the morning was so bright and beautiful that Kathie could not grieve as she had done the night before. With Laura's hand clasped over hers, she felt that she was no longer alone; and when Laura said, "Now we will both go back to the dear Motherkin," she did not refuse, but turned away to make her little preparations. This was soon done, and guided by Laura's staff, they started out for their long tramp through the woods.
"Now, Kathie," said Laura, after they had walked far enough to need a little rest, "let us sit on this nice mossy rock, and you tell me, please, how you came to be living all alone here in the woods."
Kathie sat down, and, pushing back her hair, said to Laura, "It is all so sad and sorrowful that I wonder you care to hear about it."
"But I do—really I do; only if it makes you unhappy to tell me, perhaps you had better not."