im now. 'Hain't your folks no sense to let a
young thing come out in that way?'

"I was so stiff, all I could think of was, that I had turned into an
icicle, and that I was liable to break at any minute. But I couldn't let
that criticism pass.

"'They--they didn't let me--I've come from school,' I stammered.

"He looked at me curiously, got up from his seat, opened a box under it,
and twitched out a big cape, moth-eaten, and well-worn otherwise; but
oh, girls, I never loved anything so much in all my life as that
horrible old article, for it saved my life."

A long-drawn breath went around the circle.

"'Here, you just get into this as soon as the next one,' said the
stage-driver gruffly, handing it over to me where I sat on the middle
seat. I needed no command, but fairly huddled myself within it, wrapping
it around and around me. And then I knew by the time it took to warm me
up, how very cold I had been.

"And every few minutes of the toilsome journey, for we had to proceed
very slowly, the stage-driver would look back over his shoulder to say,
'Be you gittin' any warmer now?' And I would say, 'Yes, thank you, a
little.'

"And finally he asked suddenly, 'Do your folks know you're comin'?' And
I answered, 'No,' and I hoped he hadn't heard, and I pulled the cape up
higher around my face, I was so ashamed. But he had heard, for he
whistled; and oh, girls, that made my head sink lower yet. Oh my dears,
the shame of wrong-doing is so terrible to bear!

"Well, after a while we got into Cherryfield, along about half-past
three o'clock."

"Oh dear!" exclaimed the young voices.

"I could just distinguish our church spire amid the whirling snow; and
then a panic seized me. I must get down at some spot where I would not
be recognized, for oh, I did not want any one to tell that old
stage-driver who I was, and thus bring discredit upon my father, the
clergyman, for having a daughter who had come away from school without
permission. So I mumbled out that I was to stop at the Four Corners:
that was a short distance from the centre of the village, the usual
stopping place.

"One of the passengers--for I didn't think it was necessary to prolong
the story to describe the two women who occupied the back seat--leaned
forward and said, 'I hope, Mr. Cheesewell, you ain't goin' to let that
girl get out, half froze as she's been, in this snowstorm. You'd ought
to go out o' your beat, and carry her home.'

"'Oh, no--no,' I c