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Bad Hugh

Page 10

Unmindful of the sleet beating upon his uncovered head Hugh hastened to

the spot, where the noble brute was licking a face, a baby face, which

he had ferreted out from beneath the shawl trapped so carefully around

it to shield it from the cold, for instead of one there were two in that

rift of snow--a mother and her child! That stiffened form lying there so

still, hugging that sleeping child so closely to its bosom, was no

delusion, and his mother's voice calling to know what he was doing

brought Hugh back at Last to a consciousness that he must act, and that

immediately.

"Mother," he screamed, "send a servant here, quick! or let Ad come

herself. There's a woman dead, I fear. I can carry her, but the child,

Ad must come for her."

"The what?" gasped Mrs. Worthington, who, terrified beyond measure at

the mention of a-dead woman, was doubly so at hearing of a child. "A

child," she repeated, "whose child?"

Hugh, made no reply save an order that the lounge should be brought near

the fire and a pillow from his mother's bed. "From mine, then," he

added, as he saw the anxious look in his mother's face, and guessed that

she shrank from having her own snowy pillow come in contact with the

wet, limp figure he was depositing upon the lounge. It was a slight,

girlish form, and the long brown hair, loosened from its confinement,

fell in rich profusion over the pillow which 'Lina brought half

reluctantly, eying askance the insensible object before her, and

daintily holding back her dress lest it should come in contact with the

child her mother had deposited upon the floor, where it lay crying

lustily.

The idea of a strange woman being thrust upon them in this way was

highly displeasing to Miss 'Lina, who haughtily drew back from the

little one when it stretched its arms out toward her, while its pretty

lip quivered and the tears dropped over its rounded cheek.

Meantime Hugh, with all a woman's tenderness, had done for the now

reviving stranger what he could, and as his mother began to collect her

scattered senses and evince some interest in the matter, he withdrew to

call the negroes, judging it prudent to remain away a while, as his

presence might be an intrusion. From the first he had felt sure that the

individual thrown upon his charity was not a low, vulgar person, as his

sister seemed to think. He had not yet seen her face distinctly, for it

lay in the shadow, but the long, flowing hair, the delicate hands, the

pure white neck, of which he had caught a glimpse as his mother

unfastened the stiffened dress, all these had made an impression, and

involuntarily repeating to himself, "Poor girl, poor girl," he strode a

second time across the drifts which lay in his back yard, and was soon

pounding at old Chloe's cabin door, bidding her and Hannah dress at once

and come immediately to the house.

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