ht and went back into her little sitting-room, where a
great fire was burning. Here she sat down, and determined, since she
must pass the evening alone, to do it as cheerfully as possible, she
began to sew. "Oh, what a Christmas eve!" she thought, as a picture of
other homes rose before her eyes,--homes in which husbands sat by wives
and brothers by sisters; and a great wave of regret poured over her and
a longing for something, she hardly dared say what, lest her unhappiness
should acquire a sting that would leave traces beyond the passing
moment.

The room in which she sat was the only one on the ground floor except
the dining-room and kitchen. It therefore was used both as parlour and
sitting-room, and held not only her piano, but her husband's desk.

Communicating with it was the tiny dining-room. Between the two,
however, was an entry leading to a side entrance. A lamp was in this
entry, and she had left it burning, as well as the one in the kitchen,
that the house might look cheerful and as if the whole family were at
home.

She was looking toward this entry and wondering what made it seem so
dismally dark to her, when there came a faint sound from the door at
its further end.

Knowing that her husband must have taken peculiar pains with the
fastenings of this door, as it was the one toward the woods and
therefore most accessible to wayfarers, she sat where she was, with all
her faculties strained to listen. But no further sound came from that
direction, and after a few minutes of silent terror she was allowing
herself to believe that she had been deceived by her fears when she
suddenly heard the same sound at the kitchen door, followed by a muffled
knock.

Frightened now in good earnest, but still alive to the fact that the
intruder was as likely to be a friend as foe, she stepped to the door,
and with her hand on the lock stooped and asked boldly enough who was
there. But she received no answer, and more affected by this unexpected
silence than by the knock she had heard, she recoiled farther and
farther till not only the width of the kitchen, but the dining-room
also, lay between her and the scene of her alarm, when to her utter
confusion the noise shifted again to the side of the house, and the door
she thought so securely fastened, swung violently open as if blown in by
a fierce gust, and she saw precipitated into the entry the burly figure
of a man covered with snow and shaking with the violence of the