e the rim of the pail. Jinnie could
see the glint of her greenish eyes. She stopped and, with a tenderly
spoken admonition, covered her more closely with the roller towel.
When the lighted station-house glimmered through the falling snow,
Jinnie sighed with relief.

"I couldn't 've carried you and the fiddle much farther, Milly Ann,"
she murmured.

At that moment a tall figure, herculean in size, loomed out of the
night and advanced hastily. The man's head was bent forward against
the storm. Virginia caught a glimpse of his face as he passed in the
streak of light thrown out from the station.

He sprang to the platform and disappeared in the doorway. Jinnie saw
him plainly when she, too, entered, and her eyes followed him as he
went out.

She had never seen him before. Like the man in the Merriweather
kitchen, he bore the stamp of the city upon him.

Virginia bought her ticket as her father had directed, and while the
pail was still on the floor, she bent to examine Milly Ann and the
kittens. The latter were asleep, but the mother-cat lazily opened her
eyes to greet, with a purr, the soft touch of Jinnie's fingers. The
girl waited inside the room until the shriek of the engine's whistle
told her of its approach; then, with the fiddle and the pail, she
walked to the platform.

The long, snakelike train was edging the hill, its headlight bearing
down the track in one straight, glittering line.

For the first time in her life, Jinnie felt really afraid. In other
days, with beating heart, she had hugged close to the roadside as the
monster slipped either into the station and stopped, or rushed around
the curve. Tonight she was going aboard, over into a strange land
among strange people.

She tilted the pail lovingly and hugged a little more tightly the
fiddle in her arm. Whatever happened, she had Milly, her little
family, and the comforting music. Jinnie could never be quite alone
with these. As the train slowed up, the conductor jumped down.

It seemed to Virginia like a dream as she walked toward the steps at
the end of the car. As she was about to lift her foot to climb up, she
heard a voice say:

"Let me help you, child. Here, I'll take the pail."

Virginia looked upward into the face of a man,--the same face she had
seen in the station a few moments before,--and around the handsome
mouth was a smile of reassuring kindliness.

She surrendered the pail with a burning blush, and felt, with a
strange new