"Somehow," said Alison, "you look changed."
"Oh, and ef I do look a bit changed," said the old woman, "it's cause I'm a-frettin' for you. Of course I miss you all, but I'll get accustomed to it; and it's a beautiful big place, and I'm in rare luck to have got a 'ome there. Now I must hurry off. God bless you, my dear!"
Alison stood on the steps of Mrs. Faulkner's house, and watched Grannie as she walked down the street. The weather had changed, and it was now bitterly cold; sleet was falling, and there was a high wind. But Grannie was leaning on Dave's arm, and she got along bravely.
"I don't like it," said Alison to herself, as she went into the house. "Grannie's hiding something; I can't think what it is. Oh, dear, oh dear, how I wish Jim had been true to me. If he only had, we would have made a home for Grannie somehow. Grannie is hiding something. What can it be?"
Meanwhile David saw Grannie to the omnibus, where he bade her an affectionate "good-by." She arranged to come again to see her grandchildren on the following Sunday if all was well.
"But ef I don't come, don't you fret, Dave, boy," was her last word to the lad. "Ef by chance I don't come, you'll know it's because it aint quite convenient in the family I'm staying with. Now, good-by, Dave. Bless you, lad."
The omnibus rolled away, and Grannie snuggled back into her corner. Her visit to her grandchildren had cheered her much, and she thought that she could very well get through a dreary week in the workhouse with that beacon post of Sunday on ahead. She would not for the world trouble the children on work-a-day Thursday, but on Sunday she might as a rule get a sight of them.
"And they suspect nothin', thank the good Lord!" she said, hugging her secret to her breast.
She left the omnibus at the same corner where she had left it on the previous Monday.
The weather meanwhile had been changing for the worse; snow was now falling thickly, and the old woman had no umbrella. She staggered along, beaten and battered by the great tempest of wind and snow. At first she stepped on bravely enough, but by and by her steps grew feeble. The snow blinded her eyes and took away her breath, it trickled in little pools down into her neck, and seemed to find out all the weak parts of her dress. Her thin black shawl was covered with snow; her bonnet was no longer black, but white. Her heart began to beat at first too loudly, then feebly; she tottered forward, stumbling as one in a dream. She was cold, chilled through and through; bitterly, bitterly cold. Suddenly, without knowing it, she put her foot on a piece of orange-peel; she slipped, and the next moment lay prone in the soft snow. Her fall took away her last remnant of strength; try as she would, she found she could not rise. She raised her voice to call for assistance, and presently a stout laboring man came up and bent over the little prostrate woman.