rst, he could not by any
possibility be delayed beyond supper-time, for he was needed to get
supper--or, rather, as Lidey expressed it, to help her get supper for
mother! Lidey was not hungry, to be sure, but she was getting
mortally tired of unmitigated bread and butter and molasses.

Supper-time, however, came and went, and no sign of Dave's return. On
the verge of tears, Lidey munched a little of the now distasteful
food. Her mother, worn out with the pain, which had at last relaxed
its grip, fell into a heavy sleep. There was no light in the cabin
except the red glow from the open draught of the stove, and the
intense, blue-white moonlight streaming in through the front window.
The child's impatience became intolerable.

Flinging open the door for the hundredth time, she gazed out eagerly
across the moonlit snow and down the trail. The cloudless moon,
floating directly above it, transfigured that narrow and lonely road
into a path to wonderland. In the mystic radiance--blue-white, but
shot with faint, half-imagined flashes of emerald and violet--Lidey
could see no loneliness whatever. The monstrous solitude became to her
eyes a garden of silver and crystal. As she gazed, it lured her
irresistibly.

With a sudden resolve she noiselessly closed the door, lit the lamp,
and began to put on her wraps, stealing about on tiptoe that she might
not awaken her mother. She was quite positive that, by this time, her
father must be almost home. As her little brain dwelt upon this idea,
she presently brought herself to see him, striding swiftly along in
the moonlight just beyond the turn of the trail. If she hurried, she
could meet him before he came out upon the clearing. The thought
possessed her. Stealing a cautious glance at her mother's face to be
sure her sleep was sound, she slipped out into the shine. A moment
more and her tiny figure, hooded and muffled and mittened, was dancing
on moccasined feet across the snow.

At the entrance to the trail, Lidey felt the first qualm of misgiving.
The path of light, to be sure, with all its fairy-book enticement, lay
straight before her. But the solemn woods, on either side of the path,
were filled with great shadows and a terrible stillness. At this point
Lidey had half a mind to turn back. But she was already a young person
of positive ideas, not lightly to be swerved from a purpose; and her
too vivid imagination still persisted in showing her that picture of
her father, speed