authoritatively, "and bring him to the old woman's without delay.
You must not hold him any longer," he continued, speaking to
Ruth, and remembering her face now for the first time; "your
dress is dripping wet already. Here! you fellow, take him up,
d'ye see!" But the child's hand had nervously clenched Ruth's
dress, and she would not have him disturbed. She carried her
heavy burden very tenderly towards a mean little cottage
indicated by the neighhours; an old crippled woman was coming out
of the door, shaking all over with agitation.

"Dear heart!" said she, "he's the last of 'em all, and he's gone
afore me."

"Nonsense," said Mr. Bellingham, "the boy is alive, and likely to
live."

But the old woman was helpless and hopeless, and insisted on
believing that her grandson was dead; and dead he would have been
if it had not been for Ruth, and one or two of the more sensible
neighbours, who, under Mr. Bellingham's directions, bustled
about, and did all that was necessary until animation was
restored.

"What a confounded time those people are in fetching the doctor!"
said Mr. Bellingham to Ruth, between whom and himself a sort of
silent understanding had sprung up from the circumstance of their
having been the only two (besides mere children) who had
witnessed the accident, and also the only two to whom a certain
degree of cultivation had given the power of understanding each
other's thoughts and even each other's words.