cannot go. There has been no such
night as this for forty years, and it is dark now. To-morrow morning
I will carry her home; but to-night, as she is, it is out of the
question. Tell her so, mother."

Mrs. Otis gathered herself together then, and came forward and laid
hold of Madelon's arm, and strove to pull her back towards the
settle. "Come," said she, as if Madelon were a child--"come, that's a
good girl. You stay with us till morning, and then my son shall hitch
up and carry you home. I shouldn't dare to have him go way over to
Ware Centre to-night, cold as 'tis. He ain't very tough. You stay
here with us to-night, and don't worry anything about it. I don't
know what you're talkin' about, an' I guess you don't--you are all
wore out, poor child; but I guess there didn't nobody have any knife,
and I guess he'll git out of prison pretty soon. You just take off
your things, and I'll get some pillows out of the bedroom, and you
lay down on the settle by the fire while I get some supper. The
kettle's on now. And then I'll heat the warming-pan and get the
spare-room bed as warm as toast, and mix you up a tumbler of hot
brandy cordial, and then you drink it all down and get right into
bed, and I'll tuck you up, and I guess you'll feel better in the
morning, and things will look different."

"Let me go," Madelon said to Jim Otis.

"She mustn't go, mother," he said, never looking at Madelon at all,
although he still held fast to her straining arm.

"Well," said Mrs. Otis, "You ain't no daughter of mine, and if you
set out to go I suppose I ain't any right to hinder you. But there's
one thing maybe you ain't thought of--I can't let my son take you
'way over to Ware Centre a night like this, nohow. He's all I've got
now, and I can't have anything happen to him. He can't go with you,
and there ain't any stable here, and there ain't a neighbor round
here that will hitch up and carry you there to-night, and--I suppose
you know, if you've got common-sense, that if you set out to walk
there, the way you are, you don't stand much chance of gettin' there
alive."

Madelon stared at her.

"I don't really know myself what you and my son have been talkin'
about," continued Mrs. Otis, "but near's I can make out you think
you've done something wrong, and somebody's in prison you want to get
out. I suppose you've got sense enough to know that if you freeze to
death going home to-night you can't do anything more to get him out.
The