ut in
their _volantes_. I decided that I was pleased with her. When she was
ready to go, with her blue silk pelisse and the plumes in her hat, I was
glad I came, and thought, "How much better is a girl than a sheep!"

The old man made us stay to dinner; but then he hurried us off, that we
might be over The Mountains before dark.

The air was chilly when we started, and a few snow-flakes were flying.
But we had everything to make us comfortable. The old horse always
stepped quick, going home; the wind was in our favor; our chaise had a
boot which came up, and a top which tipped down. We should soon be home.
There is nothing very bad, after all, in being sent for a girl you never
saw!

And we were not two dummies. She was willing to do her part in talking,
and I could always hold my own, if no more.

She seemed, in conversation, not at all like a "little young thing,"--so
that I kept turning round to see if the look of the child Margaret was
still in her face. Oh, how that face played the mischief with me! And
in more ways than one.

We were speaking of large families; I had told her about ours. All at
once she exclaimed at a big rock ahead, which overhung the road.

The moment I placed my eye on it, I turned the horse's head.

"Wrong road," said I.

The horse had turned off, when I wasn't minding, and was taking us to
Cutler's Mills. We tried several ways to set ourselves right by a short
cut, but were finally obliged to go all the way back to where we turned
off. In a summer day this would only have been lengthening out a
pleasant ride. But the days were at the shortest. Snow-flakes fell
thicker, and, what was worse, the wind changed, and blew them straight
into our faces. By the time we reached the foot of The Mountains it was
nearly dark, and snowing furiously. I never knew a storm come on faster.
'Twas a regular, old-fashioned, driving snow-storm, with the wind to the
eastward.

Margaret seemed noways down-hearted. But I feared she would suffer. I
shook the snow from the blanket and wrapped her in it. I drew it over
her head, pinned it under her chin, and tucked it all about her.

'Twas hard pulling for the old horse, but he did well. I felt uneasy,
thinking about the blind roads, which led nowhere but to wood-lots.
'Twas quite likely that the horse would turn into one of these, and if
he did, we should be taken into the very middle of the woods.

It seemed to me we were hours creeping on in the dark, ri