Perhaps she would have found her way down to them, but Martha had been cross with her all the morning, and the child's little spirit was frightened with her scolding.

She turned back to the cabin, sobbing, for the north wind blew coldly upon her; and then she must have caught sight of the shaft, where Stephen had been throwing stones down for her the night before, without a thought of the little one trying to pursue the dangerous game alone.

As Martha came over the cinder-hill, her eyes fell upon little Nan, rosy, laughing, screaming with delight as her tiny hands lifted a large stone high above her curly head, while she bent over the unguarded margin of the pit.

But before Martha could move in her agony of terror, the heavy stone dropped from her small fingers, and Nan, little Nan, with her rosy, laughing face, had fallen after it.
Martha never forgot that moment.

As if with a sudden awaking of memory, there flashed across her mind all the child's simple, winning ways.