looked then! Only
leafless trees and dried seed pods rattling on the bushes, the sand
frozen, and not a rush to be seen for the thick blanket of snow. A few
rods above the bridge was a footpath, smooth and well worn, that led
down to the creek, beaten by the feet of children who raced it every
day and took a running slide across the ice. I struck into the path as
always; but I was too stiff to run, for I tried. I walked on the ice,
and being almost worn out, sat on the bridge and fell to watching the
water bubbling under the glassy crust. I was so dull a horse's feet
struck the bridge before I heard the bells--for I had bells in my ears
that day--and when I looked up it was the Princess--the Princess in her
red dress and furs, with a silk hood instead of her hat, her sleigh
like a picture, with a buffalo robe, that it was whispered about the
country, cost over a hundred dollars, and her thoroughbred mare Maud
dancing and prancing. "Bless me! Is it you, Little Sister?" she
asked. "Shall I give you a ride home?"

Before I could scarcely realize she was there, I was beside her and she
was tucking the fine warm robe over me. I lifted a pair of dull eyes
to her face.

"Oh Princess, I am so glad you came," I said. "I don't think I could
have gone another step if I had frozen on the bridge."

The Princess bent to look in my face. "Why, you poor child!" She
exclaimed, "you're white as death! Where are you ill?"

I leaned on her shoulder, though ordinarily I would not have offered to
touch her first, and murmured: "I am not ill, outdoors, only dull,
sleepy, and freezing with the cold."

"It was that window!" she exclaimed. "I thought of it, but I trusted
Laddie."

That roused me a little.

"Oh Princess," I cried, "you mustn't blame Laddie! I knew it was too
cold, but I wouldn't tell him, because if he put me down I couldn't see
you, and we thought, but for your eyes being softer, you looked just
like a cardinal."

The Princess hugged me close and laughed merrily. "You darling!" she
cried.

Then she shook me up sharply: "Don't you dare go to sleep!" she said.
"I must take you home first."

Once there she quieted my mother's alarm, put me to bed, drove three
miles for Dr. Fenner and had me started nicely on the road to a month
of lung fever, before she left. In my delirium I spelled volumes; and
the miracle of it was I never missed a word until I came to "Terra del
Fuego," and there I covered my li