irst--they couldn't believe I meant
it, so they kept on trying to cuddle up to me to get warm. I slapped
them harder. They whimpered, but still they couldn't realize that I
meant to hurt them. Finally, I struck them--hard--again and again--until
they howled with pain. They understood finally that they were not
wanted--and they went crying and whimpering out into the rain.

"It awakened me, thinking what I had done, how they had come to me so
innocent--taking kindness as a matter of course because they never had
known anything else, and I had been the first to hurt them. I was the
first to spoil their confidence in others--and themselves. I couldn't
sleep for thinking of it, and finally I got up, and, to punish myself,
went out barefooted into the storm and brought them back. They forgave
me and soon settled down, but they never were quite the same, for they
had learned what pain was and what it meant to be afraid.

"When I went there to-night I was like those puppies, just as green and
confident--just as sure of everybody's kindness."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Katie," he replied in a low tone.

"I don't mean to whine," she went on, "but you see I wasn't expecting
it, and, like the puppies, it took me a long time to understand. I
thought at first it was my dress--that I looked--funny, somehow; but you
said it wasn't that, so I thought maybe it was because we were 'in
sheep,' but so is Neifkins, and nobody treated them as they did me."

"The upstarts!" savagely. "I'll never forgive myself for taking you
there!"

She protested quickly:

"You're not to blame. How could you know? You meant to do something nice
for me, Hughie."

He winced at that. It would have required more courage than he had to
have told her at the moment the exact truth.

He held the horses back and stopped suddenly.

"Katie," turning to her, "I'd do anything in the world to make amends
for what happened to-night. Isn't there some way--something I can do for
you? Anything at all," he pleaded. "Just tell me--no matter what it
is--you've only to let me know."

She looked at him with grateful eyes, but shook her head.

"No, Hughie, there's nothing you can do for me." She caught her breath
sharply and added, "Ex--except to go on liking me. It would break my
heart if you went back on me, too."

"Kate!"

"If you didn't like me any more--" She choked and the swift tears filled
her eyes.

"Like you!" impetuously. "I'd do more than like you if I never