first."

Lupton's Hill was at the other end of town, and when I got there the
dusk was thickening, drawing blue shadows over the snowy fields.
There were perhaps twenty children creeping up the hill or whizzing
down the packed sled-track. When I had been watching them for some
minutes, I heard a lusty shout, and a little red sled shot past me
into the deep snow-drift beyond. The child was quite buried for a
moment, then she struggled out and stood dusting the snow from her
short coat and red woolen comforter. She wore a brown fur cap, which
was too big for her and of an old-fashioned shape, such as girls
wore long ago, but I would have known her without the cap. Mrs. Dow
had said a beautiful child, and there would not be two like this in
Riverbend. She was off before I had time to speak to her, going up
the hill at a trot, her sturdy little legs plowing through the
trampled snow. When she reached the top she never paused to take
breath, but threw herself upon her sled and came down with a whoop
that was quenched only by the deep drift at the end.

"Are you Margaret Spinny?" I asked as she struggled out in a cloud
of snow.

"Yes, 'm." She approached me with frank curiosity, pulling her
little sled behind her. "Are you the strange lady staying at Mrs.
Dow's?" I nodded, and she began to look my clothes over with
respectful interest.

"Your grandmother is to be at the church at six o'clock, isn't she?"

"Yes, 'm."

"Well, suppose we walk up there now. It's nearly six, and all the
other children are going home." She hesitated, and looked up at the
faintly gleaming track on the hill-slope. "Do you want another
slide? Is that it?" I asked.

"Do you mind?" she asked shyly.

"No. I'll wait for you. Take your time; don't run."

Two little boys were still hanging about the slide, and they cheered
her as she came down, her comforter streaming in the wind.

"Now," she announced, getting up out of the drift, "I'll show you
where the church is."

"Shall I tie your comforter again?"

"No, 'm, thanks. I'm plenty warm." She put her mittened hand
confidingly in mine and trudged along beside me.

Mrs. Dow must have heard us tramping up the snowy steps of the
church, for she met us at the door. Every one had gone except the
old ladies. A kerosene lamp flickered over the Sunday-school chart,
with the lesson-picture of the Wise Men, and the little barrel-stove
threw out a deep glow over the three white heads that bent above