“Just,” said the man. “I’m quite satisfied with it. The emperor’s own signet-ring couldn’t content me better.”
“Ah, but it would me,” said the child. “If I had that, I’d soon use it to some purpose. I’d affix it to the deed which should repeal my father’s sentence.”
She turned the ring round and round upon the man’s finger, as his hand still lay in hers, sighed thoughtfully, then looked out toward the still falling snow, saying: “But I am dreaming of what I should like to happen, when I ought to be working at what I can do. We stay too long. Come, let us be going.”
“The afternoon is set in for a continued fall of snow,” said the peasant woman. “Best not to venture into the forest now. Nightfall will overtake you before you can reach the village. Abide another night here, and set out to-morrow early. You will be all the better for the rest.”
“But even if you are so kind as to let me sleep here again, and share your eldest child’s cot, as I did before, how can you manage for our poor friend here?” said the little girl, pointing to the stranger.
“The good man can lie upon this settle, by the side of the hearth. ’Twill be a warm, snug berth for him; and if it be a little rough or hard, he has lain upon many a rougher and harder, I’ll warrant,” said the woman with a good-humored smile.
“The field of battle is a harder couch. Stretched wounded upon the earth in the open air is rougher lying than upon this good settle,” replied the man.
“You are warm now, hands and all,” said the child. “I will leave you for a little while, that I may help our kind hostess. While she and I are about it, you can rock the cradle with your foot.”
While thus busily engaged, Paulina was struck by a sound in the outer room, as of talking. She listened. She could not distinguish the words, but she felt certain that she heard another man’s voice in reply to that of the stranger. The talking was carried on in a low, whispered tone, but talking she assuredly heard.
When she returned to the room, however, the stranger was alone, and sitting in precisely the same attitude as she had left him,—bending over the wood embers, spreading his hands to catch their welcome warmth, and with one foot resting on the rocker of the cradle.