“I am myself a child of woe and persecution. Come in, for some few hours yet you will be safe here.” With a shriek the poor maniac threw herself at Ada’s feet, and attempted to kiss them. “How I love to hear a word of kindness! Is there a human heart can feel for poor Mad Maud!—Is there a human voice can speak to me in tones of pity?” “There is,” said Ada. “God knows I pity you; but you are hurt—come in—come in—I dare not myself stand here.” “Hush—hush!” said Maud, holding up her finger and smiling. “Do not speak—you are young and beautiful; but do not speak, for I heard just now the voice of one of God’s ministering angels. The tone was low and sweet; but I knew it—Ha, ha! I knew it—’tis comfort to poor Maud.” “’Twas I that spoke,” said Ada. “Hark—hark! There again! Is it indeed you?” “It is.” “Shall you stay long?” “Stay where?” “From your house.” She pointed to the blue sky as she spoke, and gazed earnestly upwards. “See—see—yon cloud is waiting for you,” she said suddenly. “So you have come from your own house of light and everlasting joy, to speak words of comfort to poor Mad Maud? I bless—bless you.” The poor creature covered her face with her hands, and wept aloud in her fulness of heart. Ada gently laid her small hand upon Maud’s arm, and led her unresistingly into the house, closing the door after her. “Do not weep now,” she said; “I saw you the sport of many from a window in this house. What you may have done to anger those who so hotly followed you with shouts and cries, I know not; but it is sufficient for me that you are faint and weary. You shall have refreshment, and as long a rest here as I dare, for your own safety as well as my own, offer you.” Maud withdrew her hands from before her eyes, and gazed earnestly at Ada. “Are you indeed mortal?” she said. “Must I once more, for your sake, love my kind?” “I am as you see me,” said Ada, “a poor helpless girl. Here, take refreshment, and deem me not inhospitable if I tell you then to go from this place, and forget you ever saw it.” Ada placed before the poor, half-famished being such food as she had in the house, and, while she ate of the meat and bread voraciously, Ada amused herself with conjecture as to who and what this singular creature could be, who seemed, in some strange and confused manner, mixed up with her own fate. “Your name is Maud, I heard you say?” remarked Ada, kindly. “Mad Maud, they call me,” was the reply—“but I am not so mad as they think me. Do not tell them that though, for the Savage Smith would kill me, and then I should not die, as I ought to do, before he does.” “Alas,” thought Ada, “it is in vain to question this poor creature, her wits are tangled; she may know all, but can tell me nothing; and should she tell me my own story, how can I unravel her strange discourse, or separate the truth from the strange web of fiction which her mental alienation mingles with it.”