It was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid, for he walked fast. At length he stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book. Animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, and going close to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of her footsteps, began faintly to implore his help. He turned his head. Nell clapped her hands together, uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet. It was no other than the poor schoolmaster. Scarcely less moved and surprised than the child herself, he stood for a moment, silent and confounded by the unexpected apparition, without even presence of mind to raise her from the ground. But, quickly recovering his self-possession, and dropping on one knee beside her, he endeavored to restore her to herself. "She is quite exhausted," he said, glancing upward into the old man's face. "You have taxed her powers too far, friend." "She is perishing of want," rejoined the old man. "I never thought how weak and ill she was, till now." Casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate, the schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and bore her away at his utmost speed to a small inn within sight. The landlady came running in, with hot brandy and water, with which and other restoratives, the child was so far recovered as to be able to thank them in a faint voice. Without suffering her to speak another word, the woman carried her off to bed, and after having been made warm and comfortable, she had a visit from the doctor himself, who ordered rest and nourishment. As Nell evinced extraordinary uneasiness on being apart from her grandfather, he took his supper with her. Finding her still restless on this head, they made him up a bed in an inner room, to which he presently retired. The key of this chamber happening to be on that side of the door which was in Nell's room; she turned it on him, when the landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful heart. In the morning the child was better, but so weak that she would at least require a day's rest and careful nursing before she could proceed upon her journey. The schoolmaster decided to remain also, and that evening visited Nell in her room. His frank kindness, and the affectionate earnestness of his speech and manner, gave the child a confidence in him. She told him all--that they had no friend or relative--and that she sought a home in some remote place, where the temptation before which her grandfather had fallen would never enter, and her late sorrows and distresses could have no place.