n more lovely and
glorious than the moor was in summer, when the fairy bells were ringing
and the fairies were dancing all over the place.

"I see her," continued Betty; "she is tired, and yet not tired. She has
walked a very long way, and has not met one soul. She is very glad of
that; she loves great solitudes, and she passionately loves nature and
cold cannot hurt her when her heart is so warm and so happy. But
by-and-by she thinks of the old couple by the fireside and of the girls
she has left behind. She turns to go back. I see her when she turns."
Betty paused a minute. "The sky is very still," she continued. "The sky
has millions of stars blazing in its blue, and there isn't a cloud
anywhere; and she clasps her hands with ecstasy, and thanks God for
having made such a beautiful world. Then she starts to go home; but----"

Up to this point Betty's voice was glad and triumphant. Now its tone
altered. "I see her. She is warm still, and her heart glows with
happiness; and she does not want anything else in all the world except
the gray house and the girls she left behind, and the dogs by the
fireside, and the old couple in the kitchen. But presently she discovers
that, try as she will, and walk as hard as she may, she cannot find the
gray stone house. She is not frightened--that isn't a bit her way; but
she knows at once what has happened, for she has heard of such things
happening to others.

"It is midnight--a bitterly cold midnight--and she is lost in the snow!
She knows it. She does not hesitate for a single minute what to do, for
the old man in the gray house has told her so many stories about other
people who have been lost in the snow. He has told her how they fell
asleep and died, and she knows quite well that she must not fall asleep.
When the morning dawns she will find her way back right enough; but
there are long, long hours between now and the morning. She finds a
place where the snow is soft, and she digs and digs in it, and then lies
down in it and covers herself up. The snow is so dry that even with the
heat of her body it hardly melts at all, and the great weight of snow
over her keeps her warm. So now she knows she is all right, provided
always she does not go to sleep.

"She is the sort of girls who will never, by any possibility, give in
while there is the most remote chance of her saving the situation. She
has covered every scrap of herself except her face, and she is--oh,
quite warm and comf