That's no
fun. But here--look out for the other double-runner! Now we go,
hurray!"

And, presto, they whizzed by, without another thought of the aged
creature toiling up the ascent. No one appeared to have time to help
her.

Presently, however, she heard a firm, light step behind her. The next
moment a pair of merry brown eyes peered under the umbrella; a face as
round and ruddy as one of her best Baldwins beamed upon her with the
smile of old friendship, and a gay, youthful voice cried out:

"Good afternoon, Missis Barry! It's hard work getting on to-day, isn't
it?"

A singularly gentle expression lighted up the apple-woman's
weather-beaten features as she recognized the little fellow in the
handsome overcoat, who was evidently returning from an errand, as he
carried a milk can in one hand while drawing a sled with the other.

"Indade an' it is, Masther Tom!" she replied, pausing a second.

"Let us see if we can't manage differently," he went on, taking her
burden and setting it upon the sled. "There, that is better. Now give
me your hand."

She had watched him mechanically; but, thus recalled to herself, she
answered hastily:

"Oh, thank ye kindly, sir! It's too much for ye to be takin' this
trouble; but I can get along very well now, with only the umbrelly to
carry."

"No trouble at all," said he. "Look, then,--follow me; I'll pick out
the best places for you to walk in,--the snow is drifting so!"

He trudged on ahead, glancing back occasionally to see if the basket
and camp-seat were safe, or to direct her steps,--as if all this were
the most natural thing in the world for him to do, as in truth it was;
for, though he thought it a great joke that she should call him "sir,"
will not any one admit that he deserved the title which belongs to a
gentleman? He and Widow Barry had been good friends for some time.

"Sure, an' didn't he buy out me whole supply one day this last
January?" she would say. "His birthday it was, and the dear creature
was eleven years old. He spent the big silver dollar his grandfather
gave him like a prince, a treatin' all the b'ys of the neighborhood to
apples an' peanuts, an' sendin' me home to take me comfort."

Tom, moreover, was a regular patron of "the stand." He always declared
that "she knew what suited him to a T." During the selection he was
accustomed to discuss with her many weighty questions, especially Irish
politics, in which they both took a deep if n