As I speak a change passes over her face; the eyes unclose, and she looks inquiringly about her. She tries to speak, but is evidently too weak. My wife raises her, and gives her a spoonful of nourishment, while she says soothingly: 'Don't try to speak. You are among friends; and when you are better you shall tell us all about yourself. Lie still now and try to sleep.'
The gray head drops back wearily on the pillow; and soon we have the satisfaction of hearing by the regular respiration that our patient is asleep.
'You must come to bed now, Jessie,' I say. 'I shall ring for Mary, and she can sit up for the remainder of the night.' But my wife, who is a tender-hearted soul and a born nurse, will not desert her post; so I leave her watching, and retire to my solitary chamber.
When we meet in the morning I find that the little old woman has spoken a few words, and seems stronger. 'Come in with me now,' says my wife, 'and let us try to find out who she is.' We find her propped into a reclining posture with pillows, and Mary beside her feeding her.
'How are you now?' asks Jessie, bending over her.
'Better, much better; thank you, good lady,' she says in a voice which trembles from age as well as weakness. 'And very grateful to you for your goodness.'
I hear at once by the accent that she is English. 'Are you strong enough to tell me how you got lost on the moor, and where you came from, and where you were going?' continues my wife.
'Ah! I was going to my lad, my poor lad, and now I doubt I shall never see him more,' says the poor soul, with a long sigh of weariness.
'Where is your lad, and how far have you come?'
'My lad is a soldier at Fort-George; and I have come all the way from Liverpool to see him, and give him his old mother's blessing before he goes to the Indies.' And then, brokenly, with long pauses of weariness and weakness, the little old woman tells us her pitiful story.