seemed exactly the same costume
she had worn on the memorable day when we had come, bearing gifts, to
propitiate her in the matter of Paddy.

"Behind her was a dim room scantly illumined by the one small candle
that had guided us through the storm; but the old Waterloo stove was
colouring the gloom with tremulous, rose-red whorls of light, and warm
and cosy indeed seemed Peg's retreat to us snow-covered, frost-chilled,
benighted wanderers.

"Gracious goodness, where did yez all come from?" exclaimed Peg. "Did
they turn yez out?"

"We've been over to Baywater, and we got lost in the storm coming back,"
explained Dan. "We didn't know where we were till we saw your light.
I guess we'll have to stay here till the storm is over--if you don't
mind."

"And if it won't inconvenience you," said Cecily timidly.

"Oh, it's no inconvenience to speak of. Come in. Well, yez HAVE got some
snow on yez. Let me get a broom. You boys stomp your feet well and shake
your coats. You girls give me your things and I'll hang them up. Guess
yez are most froze. Well, sit up to the stove and git het up."

Peg bustled away to gather up a dubious assortment of chairs, with backs
and rungs missing, and in a few minutes we were in a circle around her
roaring stove, getting dried and thawed out. In our wildest flights
of fancy we had never pictured ourselves as guests at the witch's
hearth-stone. Yet here we were; and the witch herself was actually
brewing a jorum of ginger tea for Cecily, who continued to shiver long
after the rest of us were roasted to the marrow. Poor Sis drank that
scalding draught, being in too great awe of Peg to do aught else.

"That'll soon fix your shivers," said our hostess kindly. "And now I'll
get yez all some tea."

"Oh, please don't trouble," said the Story Girl hastily.

"'Tain't any trouble," said Peg briskly; then, with one of the sudden
changes to fierceness which made her such a terrifying personage, "Do
yez think my vittels ain't clean?"

"Oh, no, no," cried Felicity quickly, before the Story Girl could speak,
"none of us would ever think THAT. Sara only meant she didn't want you
to go to any bother on our account."

"It ain't any bother," said Peg, mollified. "I'm spry as a cricket this
winter, though I have the realagy sometimes. Many a good bite I've had
in your ma's kitchen. I owe yez a meal."

No more protests were made. We sat in awed silence, gazing with timid
curiosity about the room, the stai