hand. He did not smile. He was as bleak as the
east wind that swept the platform.

"Glad to meet you again," he said in a melancholy voice. It was news
to Jill that they had met before. She wondered where. Her uncle
supplied the information. "Last time I saw you, you were a kiddy in
short frocks, running round and shouting to beat the band." He looked
up and down the platform. "_I_ never heard a child make so much
noise!"

"I'm quite quiet now," said Jill encouragingly. The recollection of
her infant revelry seemed to her to be distressing her relative.

It appeared, however, that it was not only this that was on his mind.

"If you want to drive home," he said, "we'll have to 'phone to the
Durham House for a hack." He brooded a while, Jill remaining silent at
his side, loath to break in upon whatever secret sorrow he was
wrestling with. "That would be a dollar," he went on. "They're
robbers in these parts! A dollar! And it's not over a mile and a half.
Are you fond of walking?"

Jill was a bright girl, and could take a hint.

"I love walking," she said. She might have added that she preferred to
do it on a day when the wind was not blowing quite so keenly from the
East, but her uncle's obvious excitement at the prospect of cheating
the rapacity of the sharks at the Durham House restrained her. Her
independent soul had not quite adjusted itself to the prospect of
living on the bounty of her fellows, relatives though they were, and
she was desirous of imposing as light a burden upon them as possible.
"But how about my trunk?"

"The expressman will bring that up. Fifty cents!" said Uncle Elmer in
a crushed way. The high cost of entertaining seemed to be afflicting
this man deeply.

"Oh, yes," said Jill. She could not see how this particular
expenditure was to be avoided. Anxious as she was to make herself
pleasant, she declined to consider carrying the trunk to their
destination. "Shall we start, then?"

Mr. Mariner led the way out into the ice-covered road. The wind
welcomed them like a boisterous dog. For some minutes they proceeded
in silence.

"Your aunt will be glad to see you," said Mr. Mariner at last in the
voice with which one announces the death of a dear friend.

"It's awfully kind of you to have me to stay with you," said Jill. It
is a human tendency to think, when crises occur, in terms of
melodrama, and unconsciously she had begun to regard herself somewhat
in the light of a heroine driven out