ught four more, and when Mrs. Lamb
makes a bag of them, I am to have for it a silver clasp which belonged
to Great-grandmother Penhallow. No girl will have one like that. It was
on account of Josiah the town will not vote for Buchanan.

"I wish I had asked you for a lock of your hair. I remember how it looked
on the snow when Billy upset us."--

He had found his letter-writing hard work, and let it alone for a time.
Before he finished it, he had more serious news to add.

The autumnal sunset of the year, the red and gold of maple, oak and
sassafras, was new to the boy who had spent so many years in Europe, and
more wonderful was it when in this late October on the uplands there fell
softly upon the glowing colours of the woods a light covering of early
snow. Once seen it is a spectacle never to be forgotten, and he had the
gift of being charmed by the scenic ingenuities of nature.

The scripture reading was over and he was thinking late in the evening of
what he had seen, when his aunt said, "Goodnight, John--bed-time," and
went up the stairway. John lay quiet, with closed eyes, seeing the sunlit
snow lightly dusted on the red and yellows of the forest.

About eleven his uncle came from the library. "What, you scamp!--up so
late! I meant to mail this letter to-day; run down and mail it. It ought
to go when Billy takes the letters to Westways Crossing early to-morrow.
I will wait up for you. Now use those long legs and hurry."

John took his cap and set off, liking the run over the snow, which was
light and no longer falling. He raced down the avenue and climbed the
gate, thinking of Leila. He dropped the letter into the post-office box,
and decided to return by a short way through the Penhallow woods which
faced the town. He moved eastward, climbed the fence, and stood still. He
was some two hundred yards from the parsonage. His attention was arrested
by a dull glow behind the house. He ran towards it as it flared upward a
broad rush of flame, brilliantly lighting the expanse of snow and sending
long prancing shafts of shadow through the woods as it struck on the tall
spruces. Shouting, "Fire! Fire!" John came nearer.

The large store of dry pine and birch for winter-use piled in a shed
against the back of Rivers's house was burning fiercely, with that look
of ungoverned fury which gives such an expression of merciless, personal
rage to a great fire. The terror of it at first possessed the lad, who
was shouting hi