queried. "Oh, yes. All right;
but it's quite a journey. Don't get discouraged."

A sense of discouragement regarding long distances was just at that
moment the most remote sensation in Stanton's sensibilities. If the
railroad journey had seemed unhappily drawn out, the sleigh-ride
reversed the emotion to the point of almost telescopic calamity: a
stingy, transient vista of village lights; a brief, narrow,
hill-bordered road that looked for all the world like the aisle of a
toy-shop, flanked on either side by high-reaching shelves where
miniature house-lights twinkled cunningly; a sudden stumble of hoofs
into a less-traveled snow-path, and then, absolutely unavoidable,
absolutely unescapable, an old, white colonial house with its great
solemn elm trees stretching out their long arms protectingly all
around and about it after the blessed habit of a hundred years.

Nervously, and yet almost reverently, Stanton went crunching up the
snowy path to the door, knocked resonantly with a slim, much worn old
brass knocker, and was admitted promptly and hospitably by "Mrs.
Meredith" herself--Molly's grandmother evidently, and such a darling
little grandmother, small, like Molly; quick, like Molly; even young,
like Molly, she appeared to be. Simple, sincere, and oh, so
comfortable--like the fine old mahogany furniture and the dull-shining
pewter, and the flickering firelight, that seemed to be everywhere.

"Good old stuff!" was Stanton's immediate silent comment on everything
in sight.

It was perfectly evident that the little old lady knew nothing
whatsoever about Stanton, but it was equally evident that she
suspected him of being neither a highwayman nor a book agent, and was
really sincerely sorry that Molly had "a headache" and would be unable
to see him.

"But I've come so far," persisted Stanton. "All the way from Boston.
Is she very ill? Has she been ill long?"

The little old lady's mind ignored the questions but clung a trifle
nervously to the word Boston.

"Boston?" her sweet voice quavered. "Boston? Why you look so
nice--surely you're not that mysterious man who has been annoying
Mollie so dreadfully these past few days. I told her no good would
ever come of her going to the city."

"Annoying Molly?" cried Stanton. "Annoying _my_ Molly? I? Why, it's
to prevent anybody in the whole wide world from ever annoying her
again about--anything, that I've come here now!" he persisted rashly.
"And don't you see--we had a