stly dances of
the northern lights fill the whole sky with music visible.

Once setting out on such an excursion I traversed the dining-hall,
entered the dark barroom, and opened the inner door which gave upon the
porch. But this time I could not push the storm door open. Something
resisted, something outside thrusting at the panels, something alive. I
fell back against the bar, imagining bears, burglars, bogies, anything,
while I listened, afraid to breathe.

It was then I heard a voice, a girlish voice outside in the Arctic cold,
chanting in singsong recitation as though at school:

"Bruce, Bruce; Huron, Desoronto; Chatham Cayuga; Guelph--not Guelph--oh,
what comes after Cayuga?" Then feeble hands battered against the door,
"Teacher! Teacher!"

But when I opened the door, the girl stepped back afraid.

"You're not the teacher," she said; "oh, tell me before she comes.
Sixty-six counties and the towns have all got mixed."

"Come in and let me tell you."

"I daren't! I daren't! You're not the teacher. This is not the school.
You'll take me back!"

She turned, trying to run away, but her legs seemed wooden, and she slid
about as though she were wearing clogs.

"I won't," she screamed, "I won't go back!" Then she fell.

"Dear child, you shan't go back."

But still she shrank from me. "Oh, leave me alone!" she pleaded.

"Mayn't I give you some tea?"

"You won't take me back to Spite House?"

"Not to that dreadful place."

"Do you keep girls, too?"

"There's only a nurse, and a poor dying man."

"And you'll hear me the counties of Ontario?"

"Why, yes, dear."

"I'll come then," but as she tried to get up, "it's cramp," she moaned.

"Dear child, you're freezing."

"I'm not cold, it's cramp."

She must have fallen through the snow which covered our water-hole, for
she was literally incased in ice up to the breasts.

Finding I had not strength to carry her, I shouted for the nurse, who
roused Billy, and then the Chinaman. Together we carried her indoors,
gave her brandy, and laid her, dressed as she was, in Captain Taylor's
bath. Then while Billy rode hard for a doctor, nurse and I filled the
bath with freezing water, which for eight hours we kept renewed with
ice. Drawn gently from her body, the frost formed a film of ice upon the
surface, but she assured me that she felt quite warm, without the
slightest pain. To sustain her I gave liquid food at intervals, and
quite clear now in her mind, even