ch he opened with trembling hands:

ANSON WOOD: Your daughter is ill. Wants you. Come at once.

DR. DIETRICH.

He got into his wagon mechanically and lashed his horses into a run. He
must get home and arrange about his stock and catch the seven o'clock
train. His mind ran the round of the possibilities in the case until it
ached with the hopeless fatigue of it. When he got upon the train for
an all-night ride, he looked like a man suffering some great physical
pain.

He sat there all night in a common seat--he could not afford to pay for
a sleeper; sat and suffered the honest torture that can come to a
man--to sit and think the same dread, apprehensive wondering thoughts;
to strain at the seat as if to push the train faster, and to ache with
the desire to fly like the eagle. He tried to be patient, but he could
only grow numb with the effort.

A glorious winter sun was beginning to light up the frost foliage of
the maples lining St. Peter's streets when Anson, stiff with cold and
haggard with a night of sleepless riding, sprang off the train and
looked about him. The beauty of the morning made itself felt even
through his care. These rows of resplendent maples, heavy with
iridescent frost, were like fairy-land to him, fresh from the treeless
prairie. As he walked on under them, showers of powdered rubies and
diamonds fell down upon him; the colonnades seemed like those leading
to some enchanted palace, such as he had read of in boyhood. Every
shrub in the yards was similarly decked, and the snug cottages were
like the little house which he had once seen at the foot of the
Christmas-tree in a German church years before.

Feet crunched along cheerily on the sidewalks, bells of dray-teams were
beginning to sound, and workmen to whistle.

Anson was met at the door by a hard-faced, middle-aged woman.

"How's my girl?" he asked.

"Oh, she's nicely. Walk in."

"Can I see her now?"

"She's sleepin'; I guess you better wait a little while till after
breakfast."

"Where's Kendall?" was his next question.

"I d'n' know. Hain't seen 'im sence yesterday. He don't amount to much,
anyway, and in these cases there ain't no dependin' on a boy like that.
It's nachel fer girls to call on their mothers an' fathers in such
cases."

Anson was about to ask her what the trouble was with his girl, when she
turned away. She could not be dangerously ill; anyway, there was
comfort in that.

After he had eaten a slight