father?"

"Yes," said Marion, laughing; "he is my father."

"You don't say so, wull, naow, I'm beat. You don't favor him not a
mite; you sarten don't. An' you're here to get an eddication too, be
ye?"

"Yes; that's what I hope to do. I'm sorry it's so cold here; I should
like to walk to my aunt's if it were not."

The man gave a chuckle, which Marion did not at all understand, jammed
the stove full of wood again, and remarked as he crowded in the last
knot,--

"There's your Cousin Abijah; I know his old cowbells a mile off!
Better get warm!"

Marion was hovering close over the stove when the door opened and
Cousin Abijah entered.

"There you be," he called out hilariously as he saw her. "Not froze
nuther! You're clear grit! I told your Aunt Betty so, and she said
'seein' was believin'.' As soon as I've thawed my hands a mite, we'll
be joggin'. Dan, that's the hoss, isn't the safest to drive in the
dark."

The early twilight was already dropping down over the hills before
"the mite of thawing" was done, and then wrapped up in an old blanket
shawl Aunt Betty had sent, and covered by two well-worn buffaloes,
they started.

What a ride it was! Marion will never forget how Dan crawled along up
a mountain road, where the path ran between huge snow-drifts, under
beetling rocks that looked as if an avalanche might at any moment fall
from them and crush horse and riders in the sleigh. Sometimes going
under arches of old pine-trees, the arms of which had met and
interlocked, long, long years ago; up steep declivities, where the
horse seemed almost over their heads, down steep declivities, where
they seemed over the horse's head, never meeting any one, only hearing
the dull moaning of the wind among the forest trees, and the louder
moaning of old Dan, as he toiled painfully along.

At last there came an opening that widened until they crossed the
mountain spur, and the little village of Belden lay before them.

Marion saw a church steeple, a few houses, a sawmill, and great spaces
covered with snow. To one of these houses, on the outskirts of the
village, Cousin Abijah drove. The house was a two-storied old
farmhouse, innocent of paint or blind. There was not a fence round, or
a tree near it. On one side was a wooden well-top, with a long arm
holding an iron-bound bucket above it, the arm swinging from a huge
beam, from which, in its turn, swung two large stones, suspended from
the well-sweep by an iron chain. A we