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.
As the old man trembled with cold, and the little child slept a moment, the
mother went and poured some ale into a pot and set it on the stove, that it
might be warm for him; the old man sat and rocked the cradle, and the mother