, all waiting for somebody; and for a time I forgot where
I was--forgot even that the car had stopped.

I turns round; and there was Bonnie Bell pulling her coat up round her
neck and fixing her hands in her muff, and her pa was buttoning up his
coat. Just then, too, I seen the chauffore jump down offen the front
seat. He comes round to the door, right where the walk was that led up
to this new big house, and he opens the door and touches his hat, and
stands there, waiting.

What with their laughing and pulling at me, and me sort of hanging back,
we kind of forgot it was Christmas Eve. Old Man Wright thought of it,
sudden; and he turns back to the man, who still stood at the door
looking after Bonnie Bell and us as though we'd forgot something. He
puts his hand in his waistcoat pocket and hauls out a ten-dollar gold
piece, and puts it into the hand of this new chauffore of ours.

"Here you go, son," says he. "Merry Christmas! And I hope you'll take
good care of my daughter."

The new chauffore, standing there in the snow--he was tall and a right
good-looking chap too--he touches his cap.

"Thank you, sir," says he.

I seen the car move on away. It didn't turn in at our alley, but went on
to the next gate, because our road wasn't quite finished yet. A minute
afterward Bonnie Bell had me inside the door in the hall and was kissing
us both, right in front of a sad-looking man in clothes like ours.

We stood for just a minute near the big door, and before we got it shut
she looked out once more into the night, with the lights shining all
through the snow, and the trees looking white and thin in the drift.

"Call the chauffore in and have him get a drink," says Old Man Wright.
"That was a cold ride."

But by this time he was gone; so we all turns back to wrastle with this
sad man, who evident was intending to mix it with us.

V

US AND THE HOME RANCH

When all three of us--Old Man Wright and Bonnie Bell and me--went inside
the door of that big new house we stood there for a minute or so; and at
first I thought we had got into the wrong place--especial since that sad
man looked like he thought so too.

It was all lit up inside and you could see 'way back into the
hall--little carpets of all sorts of colors laying round, and pictures
on the wall, and a fire 'way on beyond somewhere in a grate. I never
seen a hotel furnished better.

Old Man Wright was like a man that's won a elephant on a lottery ticke