nel's state of mind, with regard to his
carriage and his horses, he did not think it advisable to introduce a
helpless stranger into the house, and he said, "I'll tell you what; did
you ever make a chair with your hands crossed--so?"

He indicated what he meant, and the chair was soon made, and Eloise
lifted into it.

"That's just the thing; but you'll have to put an arm around each of our
necks to steady yourself," Jack said. "So! That's right! hold tight!" he
continued, as Eloise put an arm around each neck.

Sam was directing matters, and taking up the lantern and Jack's
umbrella, which he had found lying in the mud, he said, "I'll light the
way and hold the umbrella over you. It don't rain much now."

"My hat and satchel, please," Eloise said, but neither could be found,
and the strange cortege started.

For an instant the ludicrousness of the affair struck both young men,
convulsing them with laughter to such an extent that the chair came near
being pulled apart and Eloise dropped to the ground. She felt it giving
way, and, taking her arm from Howard, clung desperately to Jack.

"Don't let me fall, please," she said.

"No danger; hold fast as you are," Jack answered cheerily, rather
enjoying the feeling of the two arms clasping his neck so tightly.

What Howard felt was streams of water trickling down his back from the
umbrella, which Sam held at exactly the right angle for him to get the
full benefit of a bath between his collar and his neck. He did not like
it, and was in a bad frame of mind mentally, when, after what seemed an
eternity to Eloise, they came to three or four squat-roofed houses in a
row, at one of which Sam stopped, confidently affirming it was the
Widder Biggs's, although he could not see the "lalock and pineys."

"Knock louder! Kick, if necessary," Howard said, applying his own foot
to the door as there came no answer to Sam's first appeal.

There was a louder knock and call, and at last a glimmer of light
inside. Somebody was lighting a candle, which was at once extinguished
when the door was open, and a gust of wind and rain swept in.

"Are you Mrs. Biggs?" Sam asked, as a tall figure in a very short
night-robe was for a moment visible.

"Mrs. Biggs! Thunder, no! Don't you know a man from a woman? She lives
second house from here," was the masculine response.

The door was shut with a bang, and the cortege moved on to the third
house, which, by investigating the lilac bushes and