Not a prude, you see. A prude would have had cheap scruples about compromising herself by taking a man in her arms. Not a vulgar person, who would have required the stranger to be properly recommended by somebody who came over in the Mayflower, before she helped him. Not a feeble-minded damsel, who, if she had not fainted, would have fled away, gasping and in tears. No timidity or prudery or underbred doubts about this thorough creature. She knew she was in her right womanly place, and she meant to stay there.
But she began to need help, possibly a lancet, possibly a pocket-pistol, possibly hot blankets, possibly somebody to knead these lifeless lungs and pommel this flaccid body, until circulation was restored.
Just as she was making up her mind to scream, Wade stirred. He began to tingle as if a familiar of the Inquisition were slapping him all over with fine-toothed currycombs. He became half conscious of a woman supporting him. In a stammering and intoxicated voice he murmured,—
"Who ran to catch me when I fell,
And kissed the place to make it well?
My—"
He opened his eyes. It was not his mother; for she was long since deceased. Nor was this non-mother kissing the place.
In fact, abashed at the blind eyes suddenly unclosing so near her, she was on the point of letting her burden drop. When dead men come to life in
