While she lay there mute and still, the dawn began to grow brighter in the east, the rain slackened, and a few pale beams of sunshine striking upon the scene, showed that she had fallen almost at the gate of a little farm-house from whose chimneys the blue smoke curled cheerfully up, showing that the inhabitants were already up and about their daily labors. Presently a middle-aged man, in the rough, coarse garb of a farmer came out of the house and strode down to the gate, whistling a merry tune, and snapping and cracking the great leathern whip he carried in his hand. As he stepped outside the gate his cheerful whistle suddenly ended in an exclamation of terror. His glance had fallen on the still form lying just outside the gate, with its lovely, white face and closed eyes upturned to the light. He stood still a moment, looking down at her in awe and consternation. "What a pretty young un," he said, aloud, "And she's dead, I mistrust--stone dead!" The next moment he leaned over the gate and called loudly: "Wife, wife, come out!" The door opened and a middle-aged, pleasant-looking woman appeared. She was flushed as if she had been over the fire, and held some small cooking utensil in her hand. "Well, Jerry," she said, "what do you want now?" "Come out and see," he answered. "Well, but I can't leave the cakes," said she, intent on her housewifely cares; "they will burn." "Tell Jennie to mind the gridiron," he said, "and do you come out to me." She went in and reappeared after a minute, coming down the path with her homely check apron thrown over her head. "What now, Jerry?" she said, half-pettishly, half good-naturedly. "What is lost this morning? A pity I have to mind the farm-tools as well as the frying-pans!" Jerry, whom this home thrust betrayed to be a good-natured, shiftless fellow, dependent on his better-half's more orderly ways, looked up to laugh, then checked himself, awed by the presence of that still form at his feet. "There's naught misplaced this time, my dear," he said; "you shouldn't be forever twitting a poor, careless fellow with his faults." "What is't amiss, then?" she said, as she came up to the gate. "Look _there_!" he answered, pointing down. "A poor tramp dead in the road!" The good woman looked, started, and her healthy, red cheeks turned white. "Oh, my Heavenly Father!" she ejaculated. "Who is't, Jerry?" "How should I know, woman?" asked her husband. "I've but just stepped outside the gate and found her." "And is she really, truly _dead_, Jerry?" "She looks like it," he said. "But stoop down and feel of her heart, Jane. See if it beats." The woman came out of the gate, and bending down, put her hand half-timorously inside of Queenie's cloak and felt her heart. "Yes--no--yes, it does beat just the leastest bit," she said. "Poor creature! Take her up and carry her into the kitchen, Jerry. Perhaps we may revive her."