stance. "I never knew I was such a coward." And she paused
for a moment, looking up and down the road, as if in despite of her
husband's command she had the desperate idea of running away to some
neighbor.

But she was too loyal for that, and smothering a sigh she retreated into
the house. As she did so the first flakes fell of the storm that was not
to have come till morning.

It took her an hour to get her kitchen in order, and nine o'clock struck
before she was ready to sit down. She had been so busy she had not
noticed how the wind had increased or how rapidly the snow was falling.
But when she went to the front door for another glance up and down the
road she started back, appalled at the fierceness of the gale and at the
great pile of snow that had already accumulated on the doorstep.

Too delicate to breast such a wind, she saw herself robbed of her last
hope of any companionship, and sighing heavily she locked and bolted the
door for the night and went back into her little sitting-room, where a
great fire was burning. Here she sat down, and determined, now that she
must pass the evening alone, to do it as cheerfully as possible, and so
began to sew. "Oh, what a Christmas eve!" she thought, and a picture of
other homes rose before her eyes, homes in which husbands sat by wives
and brothers by sisters, and a great wave of regret poured over her and
a longing for something, she hardly dared say what, lest her unhappiness
should acquire a sting that would leave traces beyond the passing
moment. The room in which she sat was the only one on the ground floor
except the dining-room and kitchen. It therefore was used both as parlor
and sitting-room, and held not only her piano, but her husband's desk.

Communicating with it was the tiny dining-room. Between the two,
however, was an entry leading to a side entrance. A lamp was in this
entry, and she had left it burning, as well as the one in the kitchen,
that the house might look cheerful and as if all the family were at
home.

She was looking toward this entry and wondering whether it was the mist
made by her tears that made it look so dismally dark to her when there
came a faint sound from the door at its further end.

Knowing that her husband must have taken peculiar pains with the
fastenings of this door, as it was the one toward the woods and
therefore most accessible to wayfarers, she sat where she was, with all
her faculties strained to listen. But no furthe