once his foot sank deep in the snow, and he came near
falling. Quickly the gentleman in the sledge drew rein and shouted
to the peasant, whom he had forced from the road:

"Hand over the child and it shall ride to the church with us. It's
risky carrying a little baby when there are so many teams out."

"Much obliged to you," said Jan Anderson, "but I can get along all
right."

"We'll put the little girl between us, Jan," said the young wife.

"Thanks," he returned, "but you needn't trouble yourselves!"

"So you're afraid to trust us with the child?" laughed the man in
the sledge, and drove on.

The foot-farers trudged along under ever-increasing difficulties.
Sledge followed sledge. Every horse in the parish was in harness
that Christmas morning.

"You might have let him take the girl," said Katrina. "I'm afraid
you'll fall with her!"

"What, I let _him_ have my child? What are you thinking of, woman!
Didn't you see who he was?"

"What harm would there have been in letting her ride with the
superintendent of the ironworks?"

Jan Anderson of Ruffluck stood stockstill. "Was that the
superintendent at Doveness?" he said, looking as though he had
just come out of a dream.

"Why of course! Who did you suppose it was?"

Yes, where had Jan's thoughts been? What child had he been
carrying? Where had he intended going? In what land had he
wandered? He stood stroking his forehead, and looked rather
bewildered when he answered Katrina.

"I thought it was Herod, King of Judea, and his wife, Herodias,"
he said.

GLORY GOLDIE'S ILLNESS

When the little girl of Ruffluck was three years old she had an
illness which must have been the scarlet fever, for her little
body was red all over and burning hot to the touch. She would not
eat, nor could she sleep; she just lay tossing in delirium. Jan
could not think of going away from home so long as she was sick. He
stayed in the hut day after day, and it looked as though Eric of
Falla's rye would go unthreshed that year.

It was Katrina who nursed the little girl, who spread the quilt
over her every time she cast it off, and who fed her a little
diluted blueberry cordial, which the housewife at Falla had sent
them. When the little maid was well Jan always looked after her;
but as soon as she became ill he was afraid to touch her, lest he
might not handle her carefully enough and would only hurt her. He
never stirred from the house, but sat in a corner by the hearth al