"But there are many places of shelter near here. This," referring to the little porch, "is better than where you were. You are very welcome to rest here."
The wanderer looked at her, in doubt and surprise, but without any expression of thankfulness; and sitting down, and taking off one of her worn shoes to beat out the fragments of stone and dust that were inside, showed that her foot was cut and bleeding.
Harriet uttering an expression of pity, the traveller looked up with a contemptuous and incredulous smile.
"Why, what’s a torn foot to such as me?" she said. "And what’s a torn foot in such as me, to such as you?"
"Come in and wash it," answered Harriet, mildly, "and let me give you something to bind it up."
The woman caught her arm, and drawing it before her own eyes, hid them against it, and wept. Not like a woman, but like a stern man surprised into that weakness; with a violent heaving of her breast, and struggle for recovery, that showed how unusual the emotion was with her.
She submitted to be led into the house, and, evidently more in gratitude than in any care for herself, washed and bound the injured place. Harriet then put before her fragments of her own frugal dinner, and when she had eaten of them, though sparingly, besought her, before resuming her road (which she showed her anxiety to do), to dry her clothes before the fire. Again, more in gratitude than with any evidence of concern in her own behalf, she sat down in front of it, and unbinding the handkerchief about her head, and letting her thick wet hair fall down below her waist, sat drying it with the palms of her hands, and looking at the blaze.
"I dare say you are thinking," she said, lifting her head suddenly, "that I used to be handsome, once. I believe I was. I know I was—Look here!"
She held up her hair roughly with both hands; seizing it as if she would have torn it out; then, threw it down again, and flung it back as though it were a heap of serpents.
"Are you a stranger in this place?" asked Harriet.
"A stranger!" she returned, stopping between each short reply, and looking at the fire. "Yes. Ten or a dozen years a stranger. I have had no almanack where I have been. Ten or a dozen years. I don’t know this part. It’s much altered since I went away."
"Have you been far?"
"Very far. Months upon months over the sea, and far away even then. I have been where convicts go," she added, looking full upon her entertainer. "I have been one myself."
"Heaven help you and forgive you!" was the gentle answer.
"Ah! Heaven help me and forgive me!" she returned, nodding her head at the fire. "If man would help some of us a little more, God would forgive us all the sooner perhaps."
But she was softened by the earnest manner, and the cordial face so full of mildness and so free from judgment, of her, and said, less hardily:
