A mother sat there with her little child. She was so downcast, so
afraid that it should die! It was so pale, the small eyes had closed
themselves, and it drew its breath so softly, now and then, with a deep
respiration, as if it sighed; and the mother looked still more
sorrowfully on the little creature.
Then a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a poor old man
wrapped up as in a large horse-cloth, for it warms one, and he needed
it, as it was the cold winter season! Everything out-of doors was
covered with ice and snow, and the wind blew so that it cut the face.