He looked carefully for some house which had not been deserted.

Every one was tenantless.
One hut, however, which he could just see between the trees, was still smoking.

As he approached he perceived, at some yards from the ruins of the building, an old man surrounded by weeping children.

A woman still young, evidently his daughter and the mother of the poor children, kneeling on the ground, was gazing on the scene of desolation.

She had at her breast a baby but a few months old; shortly she would have not even that nourishment to give it.