gs to bear it patient;
but the use o' life, sir, to my thinking, is to keep all His creatures
from pain if we can, an' to take God's love like the sunshine, an' be
thankful. So I'll ask ye to keep what ye knows o' this tale an' not
speak on't, an' go no more to Yarm; an' if ye'll give me yer hand on
that, sir, I'll thank ye kindly.'

So he gave her his hand on it, and went away.

XII

A FREAK OF CUPID

CHAPTER I

The earth was white, the firmament was white, the plumage of the wind
was white. The wind flew between curling drift and falling cloud,
brushing all comers with its feathers of light dry snow. At the sides of
the road the posts and bars of log-fences stood above the drifts; on the
side of the hill the naked maple trees formed a soft brush of grey; just
in sight, and no more, the white tin roof and grey walls of a huge
church and a small village were visible; all else was unbroken snow. The
surface of an ice-covered lake, the sloping fields, the long straight
road between the fences, were as pure, in their far-reaching whiteness,
as the upper levels of some cloud in shadeless air.

A young Englishman was travelling alone through this region. He had set
out from the village and was about to cross the lake. A shaggy pony, a
small sleigh, a couple of buffalo-robes and a portmanteau formed his
whole equipment. The snow was light and dry; the pony trotted, although
the road was soft; the young man, wrapped in his fur-lined coat, had
little to do in driving.

In England no one would set out in such a storm; but this traveller had
learned that in Canada the snowy vast is regarded as a plaything, or a
good medium of transit, or at the worst, an encumbrance to be plodded
through as one plods through storms of rain. He had found that he was
not expected to remain at an inn merely because it snowed, and, being a
man of spirit, he had on this day, as on others, done what was expected
of him.

To-day, in the snow and wind, there was a slight difference from the
storms of other days. The innkeeper, who had given him his horse an hour
before by the walls of the great tin-roofed church, had looked at the
sky and the snow, and asked if he knew the road well; but this had been
accepted as an ignorant distrust of the foreign gentleman. Having
learned his lesson, that through falling snow he must travel, into the
heart of this greater snowstorm he travelled, valiant, if somewhat
doubtful.

When he descended upo