, and
put off our time as well as we could till five o'clock. It was now of
course perfectly dark but for the light of the fire. We were glad when
our friend from the lodge returned with a couple of tallow candles,
blaming herself for having forgotten them.

"'I really don't know what we should do,' said Mary to her. 'The storm
seems getting worse and worse. I wonder what the driver thinks about it.
Is he in the house, do you know?'

"'He's sitting in our kitchen, Miss,' replied the young woman. 'He seems
very much put about. Shall I tell him to come up to speak to you?'

"'Thank you, I wish you would,' said Mary. 'But I am really sorry to
bring you out so much in this dreadful weather.'

"The young woman laughed cheerfully.

"'I don't mind it a bit, Miss,' she said; 'if you only knew how glad I
shall be if you come to live here. Nothing'd be a trouble if so be as we
could get a kind family here again. 'Twould be like old times.'

"She hastened away, and in a few minutes returned to say that the driver
was downstairs waiting to speak to us----"

"Laura, my dear," said grandmother, "do you know it is a quarter to ten.
How much more is there?"

Aunty glanced through the pages--

"About as much again," she said. "No, scarcely so much."

"Well then, dears, it must wait till to-morrow," said grandmother.

"_Oh_, grandmother!" remonstrated the children.

"Aunty said it was a shorter story than yours, grandmother," said Molly
in a half reproachful voice.

"And are you disappointed that it isn't?" said aunty, laughing. "I really
didn't think it was so long as it is."

"Oh! aunty, I only wish it was _twenty_ times as long," said Molly. "I
shouldn't mind hearing it all over again this minute, only you see I do
dreadfully want to hear the end. I am sure they had to stay there all
night, and that something frightens them. Oh it's 'squisitely delicious,"
she added, "jigging" up and down on her chair.

"You're a 'squisitely delicious little humbug," said aunty, laughing.
"Now good-night all three of you, and get to bed as fast as you can, as I
don't want 'grandmother dear' to scold me for your all being tired and
sleepy to-morrow."

CHAPTER XIII.

A CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE.--PART II.

"And as for poor old Rover,
I'm sure he meant no harm."

OLD DOGGIE.

"Molly is too sharp by half," said aunty, the following evening, when
she was preparing to go on with her story. "We _had_ to stay there