ou haven't a friend
in this neighborhood, with your stuck-up way. The women are sore on
you--none of them ever come to see you or even phone you. Don't you
think I see it! You've no one to turn to, so you might as well know
it--I've got you!"

His last words were almost screamed at her, as he strove to make his
voice sound above the storm, and in a sudden lull of the storm, they
rang through the house.

At the same moment there was a sound of something falling against
the door and the dog, with bristling hair, ran out from his place of
shelter.

Mrs. Paine turned quickly to the door and opened it, letting in a
gust of blinding snow, which eddied in the room and melted on the hot
stove.

A man, covered with snow, lay where he had fallen, exhausted on the
doorstep.

"What's this," cried Paine, in a loud voice, as he ran forward; "where
did this fellow come from?"

In his excitement he asked it over and over again, as if Mrs. Paine
should know. She ventured no opinion, but busied herself in getting
the snow from the clothes of her visitor and placing him in the
rocking chair beside the fire. He soon recovered the power of speech,
and thanked her gaspingly, but with deep sincerity.

"This is a deuce of a day for any one to be out," began the man of the
house. "Any fool could have told it was going to storm; what drove you
out? Where did you come from, anyway?"

Mrs. Paine looked appealingly at him:--

"Let him get his breath, can't you, see, he is all in," she said
quietly, "he'll tell you, when he can speak."

In a couple of hours, Peter Neelands, draped in a gray blanket, sat
beside the fire, while his clothes were being dried, and rejoiced
over the fact that he was alive. The near tragedy of the bright young
lawyer found dead in the snow still thrilled him. It had been a close
squeak, he told himself, and a drowsy sense of physical well-being
made him almost unconscious of his surroundings. It was enough for him
to be alive and warm.

Mrs. Paine moved about the house quietly, and did all she could with
her crude means to make her guest comfortable, and to assure him of
her hospitality. She pressed his clothes into shape again, and gave
him a well-cooked dinner, as well served as her scanty supplies would
allow, asking no questions, but with a quiet dignity making him feel
that she was glad to serve him. There was something in her manner
which made a strong appeal to the chivalrous heart of the young man.