"But now will you conduct us to Chambouri?"
"Certainly, provided we can get there in time," and the poor woman again began to weep.
"Yes, yes, we shall arrive in time;" said Madame de Vesac; "Comtois will carry the infant in one arm, and give the other to Cecilia. You and I," she added, addressing the mother, "will try to keep each other up."
They proceeded in accordance with this arrangement, Cecilia giving her hand to the little girl, and the poor mother walking by the side of her baby, every moment putting her hand upon its head, which was not covered by Comtois' coat, and redoubling her tears each time she felt it cold. Madame de Vesac, perceiving this, stopped to untie a small shawl, which she wore underneath her large one, and gave it to cover the head of the infant.
"It is indeed very cold," said Cecilia, who was beginning to think of her own troubles, and who found that by giving her hand to the little girl, she herself became very cold, from being unable to cover it with her shawl.
"How long have you been exposed to this cold?" inquired Madame de Vesac of the poor woman.
"We have not entered a house since noon," she replied. "I hoped to have reached Chambouri early this evening, but the bad weather and the bad roads have delayed us; and had it not been for you, my good lady, we must have passed the night in the wood."
"But would you have been able to endure the cold?" demanded Madame de Vesac.
"I don't know whether my poor little one would have survived it," she replied, with increased emotion, and then began to enumerate his perfections, as if she had already lost him. "He knew me," she said, weeping; "even this very morning he looked at me and smiled; the beautiful sunshine delighted him, and he raised his little arms, as if he wanted to jump; and then, after the sun had gone down, when, for the last time, I attempted to nurse him, he looked up at me, and tried to smile." At these words her tears again flowed with redoubled force.
"He will look at you; he will smile again," said Madame de Vesac.