I pushed it open though it was clogged with
snow, and stepped up to the porch. My teeth were now chattering with
cold, but as well as I could I began to sing, and in my thin and creachy
voice I had got as far as--

"_Ch'ist was born in Bef-lem,
Ch'ist was born in Bef-lem,
Ch'ist was born in Bef-lem,
An' in a manger laid_. . . ."

when I heard a rumbling noise inside the house.

Immediately afterwards the door was opened upon me, and a woman whom I
knew to be the doctor's wife looked down into my face with an expression
of bewilderment, and then cried:

"Goodness gracious me, doctor--if it isn't little Mary O'Neill, God
bless her!"

"Bring her in at once, then," said the voice of Doctor Conrad from
within, and at the next moment I found myself in a sort of
kitchen-parlour which was warm with a glowing turf fire that had a
kettle singing over it, and cosy and bright with a ragwork hearth-rug, a
dresser full of blue pottery and a sofa settle covered with red cloth.

I suppose the sudden change to a warm room must have caused me to faint,
for I have no recollection of what happened next, except that I was
sitting on somebody's lap and that she was calling me _boght millish_
(little sweet) and _veg-veen_ (little dear) while she rubbed my
half-frozen limbs and did other things that were, I am sure, all womanly
and good.

When I came to myself Doctor Conrad was saying I would have to sleep
there that night, and he must go over to the Big House and tell my
mother what had happened. He went, and by the time he came back, I had
been bathed in a dolly-tub placed in front of the fire, and was being
carried upstairs (in a nightdress many sizes too large for me) to a
little dimity-white bedroom, where the sweet smelling "scraas" under the
sloping thatch of the roof came down almost to my face.

I know nothing of what happened during the night, except that I was
feeling very hot, and that as often as I opened my eyes the doctor's
wife was leaning over me and speaking in a soft voice that seemed far
away. But next day I felt cooler and then Aunt Bridget came in her satin
mantle and big black hat, and said something, while standing at the end
of my bed, about people paying the penalty when they did things that
were sly and underhand.

Towards evening I was much easier, and when the doctor came in to see me
at night he said:

"How are we this evening? Ah, better, I see. Distinctly better!"