“But now come in and lie down on the sofa, and rest, while I make you a cup of coffee,” said Marian.

But the same expression of cunning came again into the poor creature’s face, as she said: 

“In the house?  No, no—­no, no!  Fanny has learned something.  Fanny knows better than to go under roofs—­they are traps to catch rabbits!  ’Twas in the house the Destroyer found us, and we couldn’t get out!  No, no! a fair field and no favor and Fanny will outfly the fleetest of them!  But not in a house, not in a house!”

“Well, then I will bring an easy chair out here for you to rest in—­you can sit under the shade, and have a little stand by your side, to eat your breakfast.  Come; come nearer to the house,” said Marian, taking poor Fanny’s hand, and leading her up the walk.

They were at the threshold.

“Are you Marian?” poor Fanny asked, abruptly.

“Yes, that is my name.”

“Oh, I oughtn’t to have come here!  I oughtn’t to have come here!”

“Why?  What is the matter?  Come, be calm!  Nothing can hurt you or us here!”

“Don’t love!  Marian, don’t love!  Be a nun, or drown yourself, but never love!” said the woman, seizing the young girl’s hands, gazing on her beautiful face, and speaking with intense and painful earnestness.

“Why?  Love is life.  You had as well tell me not to live as not to love.  Poor sister!  I have not known you an hour, yet your sorrows so touch me, that my heart goes out toward you, and I want to bring you in to our home, and take care of you,” said Marian, gently.

“You do?” asked the wanderer, incredulously.

“Heaven knows I do!  I wish to nurse you back to health and calmness.”

“Then I would not for the world bring so much evil to you!  Yet it is a lovelier place to die in, with loving faces around.”

“But it is a better place to live in!  I do not let people die where I am, unless the Lord has especially called them.  I wish to make you well!  Come, drive away all these evil fancies and let me take you into the cottage,” said Marian, taking her hand.

Yielding to the influence of the young girl, poor Fanny suffered herself to be led a few steps toward the cottage; then, with a piercing shriek, she suddenly snatched her hand away, crying: 

“I should draw the lightning down upon your head!  I am doomed!  I must not enter!” And she turned and fled out of the gate.

Marian gazed after her in the deepest compassion, the tears filling her kind blue eyes.

“Weep not for me, beautiful and loving Marian, but for yourself—­yourself!”

Marian hesitated.  It were vain to follow and try to draw the wanderer into the house; yet she could not bear the thought of leaving her.  In the meantime the sound of the shriek had brought Edith out.  She came, leading her little daughter Miriam, now five years old, by the hand.