ht in
sayin' this was out of her line. Anyway, it was a mighty disappointed
trio that sized her up when I landed her under the porte cochere.

When she's run her eye over the size and swellness of the place I've
brought her to, and seen a sample of the folks, she looks half scared
to death. And you wouldn't have played her for a fav'rite, either, if
you'd seen the cheap figure she cut, with them big eyes rollin' around,
as if she was huntin' for the nearest way out. But we give her a cup
of hot tea, makes her put on a pair of fleece lined overshoes and
somebody's Persian lamb jacket, and leads her out to make a try for the
championship.

Some of 'em was sorry of her, and tried to be sociable; but others just
stood around and snickered and whispered things behind their hands.
Honest, I could have thrown brickbats at myself for bein' such a mush
head. That wouldn't have helped any though, so I gets busy and rolls
together a couple of chunks of snow about as big as flour barrels and
piles one on top of the other.

"It's up to you, Cornie," says I. "Can't you dig something or other
out of that?"

She don't say whether she can or can't, but just walks around it two or
three times, lookin' at it dreamy, like she was in a trance. Next she
braces up a bit, calls for an old carvin' knife and a kitchen spoon,
and goes to work, the whole push watchin' her as if she was some freak
in a cage.

I pipes off her motions for awhile real hopeful, and then I edges out
where I could look the other way. Why say, all she'd done was to hew
out something that looks like a lot of soap boxes piled up for a
bonfire. It was a case of funk, I could see that; and maybe I wa'n't
feelin' like I'd carried a gold brick down to the subtreasury and asked
for the acid test.

Then I begins to hear the "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" come from the crowd.
First off I thought they was guyin' her, but when I strolls back near
enough for a peek at what she was up to, my mouth comes open, too.
Say, you wouldn't believe it less'n you'd seen it done, but she was
just fetchin' out of that heap of snow, most as quick and easy as if
she was unpackin' it from a crate, the stunningest lookin' altogether
girl that I ever see outside a museum.

I don't know who it was supposed to be, or why. She's holdin' up with
one hand what draperies she's got--which wa'n't any too many--an' with
the other she's reachin' above her head after somethin' or other--maybe
the soap on