afraid I can't get there. It
would never do to stand still," she realized and presently she made up
her mind to struggle on toward the nearest light a little ahead.

She bowed her head again and pressed on through the drifts, feeling her
strength would do no more than get her to this refuge. At last it was
reached, a little house, by the wayside, a tiny garden in front and a
small cow-shed behind. Managing to get the gate open, Edna went upon the
porch and knocked at the door.

It was opened by a little girl about her own age. "Why," she exclaimed,
"who is it? I thought you were mother. Come right in out of the storm.
Isn't it a dreadful one?"

Edna, scarce able to speak, tottered into the room, warm from a bright
fire in a base-burner stove and cheerful by reason of a lighted lamp.

"You are all covered with snow," the little girl went on. "Do come to
the fire and take off your hat and coat. You must be nearly frozen and I
expect your feet are wet and cold. I'll take off your shoes."

She stooped down and began to unfasten the snowy shoes after removing
the rubbers Edna had been fortunate enough to have put on.

In a moment the wanderer was able to tell her story, and to thank her
little hostess for her attentions. "I don't know what I am going to do,"
she said. "I'm afraid I can't get home, and there isn't any way to send
them word to come for me. Of course they will think I have stayed in
the city. If I had known how bad the storm was going to be I would never
have started, but I did want to see my mother."

"And I want to see my mother," replied her hostess. "She went down the
road this morning to see my aunt who is ill, and she was coming back on
this train that got in a little while ago, the train you must have come
on."

"I didn't see anyone get off," Edna told her, "only two or three men who
got into a wagon and drove off before I left the station. Most everyone
I know comes out on the train before that, but I missed it, you see."

"Well, I am very glad to have you here," said the other. "If mother did
not come on that train she won't come at all, I am sure, for the next
ones don't stop at my aunt's station, and I should have been here all
alone. What is your name?"

"My name is Edna Conway, and I live on the main road just this side of
that piece of woods you see after you pass Mrs. MacDonald's. Hers is the
big gray house with the greenhouses, you know."

"Oh, yes I know it very well. My name is Ne