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122 but the mud with which he was generously decorated concealed its original colour and barely revealed that his stockings were black and his shoes old tan ones.

“Wait a minute,” said Jane, thinking that there was something familiar in the boy’s drooping shoulders and build. She put out her hands to check Mary, who, overflowing with sympathy, was hastening to lift the lad and pour between his cold lips a little of the brandy which she carried. “Wait a minute, Anne; let mother turn him over.”

Mary stopped, but looked at Jane, astonished. Anne gave her a sharp glance.

“All right, Jane; I think maybe it would be better,” Anne said.

“Oh, I don’t want to touch him! I never could bear to do anything of this sort!” shuddered Mrs. Garden.

She went up to the boy, nevertheless, and shrinkingly took him by the two dryest spots that she could select on his shoulders and turned him. He resisted her and made the turning unexpectedly hard, considering that he had fallen as he lay when he had entered, as if his last drop of strength had been drained. Pulling him over, Mrs. Garden fell back with a cry.