o alone."

"Yes, it does. And see here! You go over as far as Mrs Fleming's.
She'll do you good, and maybe she'll let Katie come home with you to
stay a day or two. What you want is to have somebody to look at besides
Sally Griffith, and I don't know anybody any better for that than little
Katie Fleming. Her grandmother will let her come, seeing you are
alone."

It was not a blight day even yet, though the snow had ceased to fall,
and the clouds were clearing away. Elizabeth looked out of the window,
hesitating.

"If any one should come in," said she.

"Well, I guess I could say all that need be said--unless it was anybody
very particular, and then I could keep them till you came home again."

"Well, I'll go; and thank you, cousin," said Elizabeth, laughing.

She did not drive old Samson. He was safely stabled by this time. She
drove her own horse and sleigh with its pretty robes, and acknowledged
herself better the very first breath of wind that fanned her cheek. The
snow had fallen so heavily as to make it not easy to drive rapidly, and
so she enjoyed all the more the winter sights and sounds that were about
her. The whole earth was dazzlingly white. The evergreen trees in the
graveyard looked like pyramids of snow. The trunks of the great maples
under which she passed as she drew near Mr Fleming's house, showed
black and rugged, and so did the leafless boughs that met each other
overhead.

But even the great boughs were bending under their load of new-fallen
snow, and every now and then, as the wind stirred them, it fell in
great, soft masses silently to the ground. How still and restful it
was. The sleigh-bells tinkled softly, and there was a faint rushing of
the wind through the trees, and the sharp stroke of an axe was heard now
and then in the distance. That was all. Elizabeth put away all
troubled thoughts to enjoy it, and there were no traces of tears, no
signs of nerves visible, when she drove up to Mrs Fleming's door. She
had been there a good many times since the night she had made the visit
with Clifton and the minister, and she never came but that she was
heartily welcomed by them all.

"Especially welcome to-day, when we never expected to see any one after
such a fall of snow. Come awa' ben, Miss Elizabeth, and when Davie
comes down with his load of wood, he'll put in the horse, and you'll
bide to your tea, and go home by light of the new moon."

But Elizabeth could not stay lo