A light covered wagon had just drawn up at the depot door, and out of it quickly stepped an elderly gentleman. Hurrying in with youthful alacrity, he glanced with eager haste from side to side of the dingy apartment. A look of keen disappointment swept over his features, changing instantly to one of grief and terror as his eye fell upon the little group about the settee.

“What—who—who is it? What has happened?” he asked tremulously, turning pale, and laying his hand on a chair-back as if to steady himself; then heaving a sigh of relief as the men stepped aside, giving him a view of the prostrate form, Jack Strong saying:

“It’s not Mr. Rolfe, sir, but on’y a poor female woman as has fainted. Mr. Rolfe, he didn’t come. Somebody’s took her child away from her, I do believe. Leastways she was screamin’ for it, and runnin’ arter the cars, which of course she couldn’t ketch. I reckon she’s sick too. Looks mighty bad, anyhow.”

“So she does, poor creature!” said the gentleman, approaching. “We must do something at once to bring her to. Water, Jack—quick! I wish Dr. Wright was here.”

But at that instant a moan came from the pale lips, and the eyes—large, dark, and lustrous—opened wide. They caught the pitying gaze of the new-comer. Feebly she lifted her arms toward him, then dropped them again, faintly murmuring:

“You have been gone so long, father, and I am ill—dying. Take me home.”

“That I will!” he said, obeying a sudden generous impulse, for he was much moved by the appeal. “Jack!”

“Do you know her, sir, Mr. Heywood?” queried the switchman in surprise.

“No more than you do, Jack, but surely she is in sore need of help, and I’m able to give it. In fact, I think it is a plain call of Providence. I’ve brought the dearborn, thinking to take home Rolfe and his luggage; but he hasn’t come, and here it is—the very thing to carry her in.

“But wait a moment; what do you know of her? Is she quite alone?”

“Indeed I don’t know nothin’ more than—” began the switchman, but was interrupted by the hurried entrance of Irene.

“Is she livin’? where is she?” asked the girl, rushing into their midst breathless with haste and excitement. “Here’s some money the gentleman gave her, and she throwed it on the floor; I reckon because she thought ’twas paying her for the child.”

“My child! my Ethel!” cried the wanderer, starting up, but only to fall back again, overcome with weakness. “Come to mother, darling, come!” she murmured, her hand feebly extended, her eyes closed, while she moved her head restlessly from side to side.

“She’s out of her mind,” whispered the girl.

Mr. Heywood nodded assent; and drawing Irene aside, asked a few rapid questions, in reply to which she imparted all the information she could give in regard to the sufferer.

All he heard but strengthened his resolution to befriend the poor creature, and he at once set about making preparations for removing her to his own house, some three miles distant.

A quantity of clean straw was bestowed in the bottom of the dearborn, a buffalo-robe laid over it, making a not uncomfortable bed. On this the invalid was gently placed, and carefully covered with a second robe.

She made no resistance. She was quite delirious, and knew nothing of what was passing around her.

“Carefully now, Mike,” the old gentleman said, taking his seat beside the coachman; “the poor thing’s in no state to bear unnecessary jolting.”

“Hallo! hold on there a minute; here’s a message for you, Mr. Heywood!” cried the telegraph operator, rushing out from his office with a piece of paper in his hand. “From Rolfe, sir; he’s all right—missed the train, that’s all; will be here to-morrow morning.”

“God willing,” added the old gentleman reverently, taking the paper with trembling fingers; “and His name be praised that my boy is safe. I’m obliged to you, Dixon.”

The storm had increased in violence: the showers of rain and sleet now fell almost without intermission, and the wind blew with a fury that threatened danger from falling trees as they drove on through the forest, their progress necessarily slow because of the state of the road and the intense darkness.

The raging of the tempest was not favorable to conversation, and few words passed between them, while the woman for the most part slept heavily under the influence of a narcotic, only a moan or a muttered word or two now and then escaping her lips.

Mr. Heywood was one of the early settlers of Iowa. He had invested largely in land on his arrival, and in the course of years had, by its rise in value, become quite wealthy. The log cabin in the wilderness, in which the early years of his married life were passed, and where his children had first seen the light, was now replaced by a large, handsome brick house standing in the midst of well-kept gardens and cultivated fields. “Sweetbrier” Mrs. Heywood had named the place, and it was often pointed out to strangers as one of the finest residences in the county. The Heywoods had not, however, been exempt from trials: four out of six children had passed away from earth. Of the two survivors, the eldest, a son, had emigrated to California several years before this, and was now returning for his first visit to his old home, parents, and sister.

Ada, the daughter, a fair girl of eighteen, was full ten years younger than Rolfe, he being the eldest and she the youngest born.

In the sitting-room at Sweetbrier mother and daughter eagerly awaited the coming of the loved travellers—father and son.

The room was tastefully furnished, a bright wood fire crackled cheerily on the hearth, and an astral lamp on the centre-table shed a soft, mellow light on two happy faces, on books, pictures, lounges, and easy chairs.

In the adjoining room a table was set out with snowy damask, fine French china, and silverware, in readiness for the feast preparing in the kitchen, whither Mrs. Heywood occasionally hied to oversee the labors of her cook.

“How the wind does blow!” she remarked, returning from one of these little excursions. “It’s a dreadful night for your father to be out. I wish Rolfe had come yesterday.”

“I wish he had,” said Ada, running to the window. “How very dark it is! I’m sure they can’t see the road, or any tree that may be blown down across it. Mother, I am afraid they’ve met with some accident, for it’s nearly ten o’clock—high time they were here.”

“We’ll not distress ourselves, dear, with anticipating evil; both we and they are in the Lord’s keeping,” replied the mother, striving to put away anxious thoughts. “I think Peace and Plenty will be able to find the road; I never knew them to miss it yet, even in nights as dark as this. Come, sit down by the fire, Ada, and read me again the letter you received from your brother the other day; that will help to while away the time till they come.”

The girl complied, drawing the letter from her pocket, and seating herself on an ottoman at her mother’s feet.

“I wonder,” she said, refolding the missive, “that Rolfe has never married. I pity the somebody that’s missing such a good husband.”

“Time enough yet,” said the mother, smiling; “he is only twenty-eight. There! I hear the rattle of the wheels.” Both sprang up and hurried to the outer door, each heart beating high with delighted expectation.

They were just in time to see Mr. Heywood alight from the vehicle, which had already drawn up before the entrance.

“My dear,” he said, hurrying up the steps into the portico, “don’t be alarmed. I have not brought our boy, but he’s safe and well; sent me a telegram to say he’d missed the train, and will be here to-morrow, God willing.”

“Well,” she said, with a sigh, “it’s a sore disappointment, but I’m thankful it’s no worse. You’ve had a hard ride, and—”

“Have brought an unexpected guest with me,” he interrupted hastily. “Mary, dear, remembering the Master’s words, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me,’ you’ll not object to taking her in, for she may be one of His.”

“Who, Joseph?” she asked in a startled tone.

“A poor, forsaken, dying creature, Mary; I’ve not been able to learn her name.” And he hurried to the assistance of Mike, who had fastened his horses and was preparing to lift the woman from the wagon.

Taking each an end of the buffalo-robe on which she lay, they carried her in between them and laid her gently down before the sitting-room fire.

Mrs. Heywood had hastened to order a room and bed made ready, and now, returning with such restoratives as were at hand, knelt by the side of the sufferer to apply them.

“How young! how pretty!” she said in surprise, gazing down at the unconscious face with its broad white brow, cheeks now slightly flushed with fever, sweet mouth, and large, lustrous eyes, which suddenly opened wide upon her, then closed again, while a deep moan escaped the lips and the head moved restlessly from side to side.

“She’s very ill, poor dear!” said the old lady. “Ada, my child, don’t come near lest her disease should be contagious. We ought to have the doctor here as soon as possible, Joseph.”

“I’ll go for him,” said Mike, starting for the door.

“Hark!” cried Ada, “there’s a horse galloping up the drive. Who can it be coming at this hour on such a night?”

Mrs. Heywood rose to her feet, and they all stood for a moment intently listening; then, at a “Hallo!” from a familiar voice,

“Why, it’s the doctor himself!” they exclaimed simultaneously, the old gentleman and Ada running out to the hall to greet him.

He had already alighted from his horse, and was coming in.

“All well?” he asked almost breathlessly, not even pausing to say good-evening.

“Yes—no!” returned Mr. Heywood. “This way as quick as you can, doctor; we’ve a poor creature here who is very sick indeed.”

“Ah, that explains it,” remarked the physician, as if thinking aloud, while hastily following his host.

He pronounced his patient in a brain-fever and very ill indeed.

“The poor creature (evidently a lady) must have been half famished for months past, and has hardly strength to cope with the disease,” he said, “yet with the blessing of Providence upon skilful treatment and the best of nursing”—with a bow and a smile directed to Mrs. Heywood—“she may possibly recover.”

“Poor dear! my heart is strongly drawn to her,” said the old lady, twinkling away a tear as she bent over the bed where they had laid the sufferer, and softly smoothed back the hair from the pale forehead, “and she shall not die for lack of anything it is in my power to do for her.”

“Singular!” murmured the doctor meditatively. Then glancing from the face of his patient to those of his old friends, “It doesn’t seem to have occurred to you to wonder how I came here so opportunely to-night,” he remarked.

“Why no, to be sure,” said Mr. Heywood. “How was it? We have been so taken up with this poor creature’s critical condition as to have no thought for anything else.”

“Just so. Well, I was hurrying home from the bedside of a patient some two miles from here; very anxious to get home, too, out of the darkness and storm; when suddenly it was strongly impressed upon my mind that I was needed here and ought to come at once. It was a good half-mile out of my way, as you know; bad road, too, through the thickest of the woods, where the wind was blowing down trees, and one might at any moment fall on and crush me and my horse; but so strong was the impression I speak of that I really could not resist. And there surely was a providence in it,” he added reverently, “for by to-morrow morning medical aid would have come too late to give this poor woman even a chance for life.”

“I am sure of it,” said the old lady; “and in her coming here also. I shall watch with her through the night, doctor.”

“And I shall share your vigil,” he replied.

The morning sun rose bright and clear, but its cheerful light brought no alleviation of the wanderer’s pain. She lay tossing on her couch unconscious of all the solicitude felt for her, all the kindness lavished upon her, now muttering incoherently, now crying out for “her child, her Ethel, her sweet, darling baby.”

Immediately after breakfast Mr. Heywood went himself in search of a nurse, and having procured one, and seen her established by the bedside, he and Mike again drove over to the depot at Clearfield, reaching there in time for the morning train. When they returned Rolfe was with them.