ther was out of work. "She ain't goin' to be stented in one single
thing; remember that," Andrew told Fanny, with angry emphasis. "That
little, delicate thing is goin' to have everything she needs, if I
spend every cent I've saved and mortgage the place."

"Oh, you'll get work before it comes to that," Fanny said,
consolingly.

"Whether I do or not, it sha'n't make any difference," declared
Andrew. "I'm goin' to hire a horse and sleigh and take her
sleigh-ridin' this afternoon. It'll be good, and she's been talkin'
about a sleigh-ride ever since snow flew."

"She could do without that," Fanny said, doubtfully.

"Well, she ain't goin' to."

So it happened that the very day after Lloyd's had shut down, when
every man out of employment felt poorer than he did later when he
had grown accustomed to the sensation of no money coming in, Andrew
Brewster hired a horse and double sleigh, and took Ellen, her
mother, grandmother, and aunt out sleigh-riding. Ellen sat on the
back seat of the sleigh, full of that radiant happiness felt by a
child whose pleasures have not been repeated often enough for
satiety. The sleigh slid over the blue levels of snow followed by
long creaks like wakes of sound, when the livery-stable horse shook
his head proudly and set his bells in a flurry. Ellen drew a long
breath of rapture. These unaccustomed sounds held harmonies of
happiness which would echo through her future, for no one can
estimate the immortality of some little delight of a child. In all
her life, Ellen never forgot that sleigh-ride. It was a very cold
day, and the virgin snow did not melt at all; the wind blew a soft,
steady pressure from the west, and its wings were evident from the
glistening crystals which were lifted and borne along. The trees
held their shining boughs against the blue of the sky, and burned
and blazed here and there as with lamps of diamonds. The child
looked at them, and they lit her soul. Her little face, between the
swan's-down puffs of her hood, deepened in color like a rose; her
blue eyes shone; she laughed and dimpled silently; she was in too
much bliss to speak. The others kept looking at her, then at one
another. Fanny nudged her mother-in-law, behind the child's back,
and the two women exchanged glances of confidential pride. Andrew
and Eva kept glancing around at her, and asking if she were having a
good time. Eva was smartly dressed in her best hat, gay with bows
and red wings bristling as sharp