ose rein to Rocket went galloping through
the snow.

Under ordinary circumstances that early ride would have been vastly
exhilarating to Hugh, who enjoyed the bracing air, but there was too
much now upon his mind to admit of his enjoying anything. Thoughts of
Adah, and the increased expense her presence would necessarily bring,
flitted across his mind, while Barney's bill, put over once, and due
again ere long, sat like a nightmare on him, for he saw no way in which
to meet it. No way save one, and Rocket surely must have felt the
throbbing of Hugh's heart as that one way flashed upon him, for he gave
a kind of coaxing whine, and dashed on over the billowy drifts faster
than before.

"No, Rocket, no," and Hugh patted his glossy neck. He'd never part with
Rocket, never. He'd sell Spring Bank first with all its incumbrances.

It was now three days since Hugh had gladdened Aunt Eunice's cottage
with the sunshine of his presence, and when she awoke that morning, and
saw how high the snow was piled around her door, she said to herself,
"The boy'll be here directly to know if I'm alive," and this accounted
for the round deal table drawn so cozily before the blazing fire, and
looking so inviting with its two plates and cups, one a fancy china
affair, sacredly kept for Hugh, whose coffee always tasted better when
sipped from its gilded side, the lightest of egg bread was steaming on
the hearth, the tenderest of steak was broiling on the griddle, while
the odor of the coffee boiling on the coals came tantalizingly to Hugh's
olfactories as Aunt Eunice opened the door, saying pleasantly:

"I told 'em so. I felt it in my bones, and the breakfast is all but
ready. Put Rocket up directly, and come in to the fire."

Fastening Rocket in his accustomed place in the outer shed, Hugh stamped
the snow from his heavy boots, and then went in to Aunt Eunice's
cheerful kitchen-parlor, as she called it, where the tempting breakfast
stood upon the table.

"No coffee! What new freak is that?" and Aunt Eunice gazed at him in
astonishment as he declined the cup she had prepared with so much care,
dropping in the whitest lumps of sugar, and stirring in the thickest
cream.

It cost Hugh a terrible struggle to refuse that cup of coffee, but if he
would retrench, he must begin at once, and determining to meet it
unflinchingly he replied that "he had concluded to drink water for a
while, and see what that would do; much was said nowadays about c