safe. At last her mother suggested that it
was a long time since she had paid the
minister a visit, and that if she went into the
village she would still be among people.
Dorel threw a frock over her shoulders, which
served as cloak, and, pulling part of it as a
hood over her head, drew it together under
her chin, and looked out of it lovingly at her
mother, with her fresh wholesome face and
kindly black eyes, like the pretty girl she
was; then hurried out. "God forgive my
sin!" she said when she was out of doors.
"It is the first lie I ever told mother. But
I saw him go into the wood this morning, and
he has not come back."

"She shall come after me yet," Gottlieb
had said.

Dorel followed a path made by the
hand-sledges, that went from the village to the
wood. From the trees through which the
wind was howling, the snow fell in dull heavy
lumps about her, and she heard the hoarse
crows crying hungrily. When she passed
beyond the track of the sledges, her feet sank
deeply in the snow as she worked on with
anxious haste. At last she stopped and
looked about her. She felt sure that she was
in the neighbourhood of a small chasm called
the Schieferbruch. Thence home, she knew
her way. If she could but descend it! For
that was the pit—about thirty yards deep—
into which she had felt that Gottlieb might
have fallen. "With the help of Heaven, I will
venture," she exclaimed, and struggled on
till she found deep footsteps that crossed her
path. At once she pursued their track. At
one place the traveller had fallen. Farther
on, something dark lay in a hollow—a fur
cap. She wrung her hands. It was his cap,
given to him by herself last Christmas four
years.

From the edge of the chasm, at last Dorel
looked down on a black object, silent under
all her cries. She knelt waist-deep in snow,
and prayed for a good angel to help her.
"Gottlieb!" she cried again; "if you do not
answer, may my sin be forgiven—I shall
throw myself down to you among the snow!"
She then heard a low wailing; and,
commending to God her mother, the widow, and
her household, she ventured to descend, and
struggle for her lover's life. Thrusting her
arms into the snow when she was falling—
climbing, rolling, sometimes buried nearly to
the chin—Dorel came to the bottom safely,
and flung herself on Gottlieb's body.

He still lived. With glowing hands she
cleared away the snow in which he was
imbedded. She rubbed his temples; and,
having melted water by putting snow into
her hands, she stooped to him and let it flow
between his lips. When his eyes opened, and
his chest began to heave, she uttered a loud
cry of joy, and tried to lift him by the
shoulders; for he had no strength to help
himself.

Then she remembered that she had a crust
in her pocket which she had picked up
when it had been left by one of the children
in the bedroom. Gottlieb had no strength
to bite it. "You will turn against it,
Gottlieb, but there is no other help," she said,
with a smile; and she bit the bread herself,
and so stood over him, and fed him carefully, as
a bird feeds her young. Then, when he could
better use his limbs and stand upright, she
bade him stamp upon the ground, and stamped
before him merrily. At last they were
able to climb up together out of the Schieferbruch,
and Gottlieb was led by Dorel homeward.
When they got into the track, there
was Minel's little brother Karl to be seen
turning a corner with a hand-sledge. "See,"
she said, laughing, "there is a carriage waiting
for you!" She told Karl that he must
lend his sledge and strength, to help in carrying
the sick man home. Gottlieb was put,
whether he would or no, into the dray; and
Dorel, when she had taken the frock from her
head and shoulders to throw over the young
man's breast and face, started with Karl in the
sledge. It was a fine sight for the villagers
when Dorel was seen dragging Gottlieb out
of the forest. She looked at nobody, and
cared for nobody, conveyed him up to his own
door, committed him to the care of his
house-people, ordered peppermint tea to be made
for him, and bade them put him instantly to
bed. Then she went home, still glowing
from the exercise.

"Thank God, Dorel, you are home at last.
Where have you been?"

"Mother," she said, with emotion, "it was
well that I went! But make me a cup of
coffee. I am chilled."

"You shall have that, at once," said the
widow, setting instantly to work upon it.

"But what has happened to you?"

"Nothing to me. But, I was in time to
save a man who was half-frozen in the
Schieferbruch."

"Who was it?" the mother asked. Dorel
turned aside with scarlet cheeks and tears;
but said at last with forced indifference, "It
was Gottlieb, mother."

"What! Gottlieb! the bad man! Heaven
only knows, my child, what sort of stuff your
heart is made of."

Gottlieb had been on his way to the next
village to take the measure of a child's coffin,
when he was caught in a thick snowstorm
and missed his path. When the storm was
over, he had staggered, half-faint, through
the deep snow, until at last he fell where
Dorel found him. Safe at home in bed, of
course after what had happened, he repented
heartily of his behaviour to Dorel. Dorel,
of course, would come or send to ask how he
got on; then he would make amends to her.
But Dorel did not come or send to ask how he
got on. When he was up again and should
have gone like a man to own his obligation to
her and confess his evil-doing, he was too
proud. He resolved to write. The ink was