Chapter 36. A Night In The Snow

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_ CHAPTER XXXVI. A NIGHT IN THE SNOW

"Where have you been?" exclaimed Addie, as Lottie came down dressed warmly, but plainly. "We are all through lunch, and ready to start."

"I will not detain you, but will wrap up some lunch and take it with me. May I sit with you?" she said to Hemstead, a little later, as she came out where he was standing on the piazza,

"You will be very much exposed to the cold on the driver's seat, Miss Marsden," he said, hesitatingly; but she saw well enough what he wished, though conscience was condemning him all the time.

"So will you," she answered.

"Yes, but I am a man."

"And I am a woman," she said, with something of her old piquant style. "I do not like your implied assertion of superiority, sir. I have as good a right to expose myself to the cold as a man."

"I was not disputing your right, Miss Marsden, but--"

"O, I understand. You are of those who think so poorly of women as to regard them merely as men's pets,--the weaker sex, you would call us,--who prefer to wait till everything is made nice and comfortable, and then languidly step forward. In your reading of history, I think you must have skipped several chapters."

"You do me injustice," said Hemstead, warmly, and falling blindly into her trap. "If I had skipped all the chapters which treat of woman's heroism, in doing and suffering, I should, indeed, know little of history. She has proved herself the equal, and at times the superior of man."

"Pardon me," said Lottie, in a hurt and injured tone; "I shall reach the unwelcome truth at last: it is not woman in general who is weak, but Lottie Marsden in particular. I am very sorry that you have so poor an opinion of me, and I shall try to change it somewhat by enduring, on this drive, all the exposure and cold that you can."

As the sleigh just then came up, she settled the question by springing in and taking her place on the driver's seat.

Hemstead was perfectly nonplussed, and Mr. Dimmerly, who had stood in the door and heard what had been said, retreated rapidly, as he broke out into the most irrepressible chuckle in which he had yet indulged.

"Now, Miss Lottie," whined De Forrest, coming out muffled to his eyes, "are you going to sit there?"

"Certainly. You have Addie and Bel to talk to. Did you suppose that Mr. Hemstead was to be treated like a coachman because he kindly consented to drive us over?"

"Let me drive, then."

"No, indeed," cried Bel and Addie in chorus; "we won't trust to your driving." So De Forrest, with very poor grace, took his seat with them, and with his back to those whom he would gladly have watched most suspiciously. He had grown desperately jealous of Hemstead, and yet his vanity would not permit him to believe it possible that Lottie Marsden, of all others, could be won to such a life as the predestined missionary would lead. Like the narrow rationalists of this world, he was ever underrating the power of that kind of truth with which Hemstead was identified. To all of his class, the apparent self-sacrifice caused by love to God, and its kindred flame, love (not a passion) for some human object, has ever appeared both stupid and irrational. He did not understand Lottie, and could only curse the wretched visit, and wish it over every moment. When she returned to her accustomed life in New York, she would, he believed, soon be her old self.

Since he could not watch Lottie and Hemstead, he tried to use his ears as far as possible, but the noisy bells drowned their voices, so that he could catch but few words. He was somewhat comforted in the fact that at first they did not appear to have very much to say to each other.

Hemstead tried to introduce various topics remote from the thoughts that were weighing upon both their hearts, but Lottie did not sustain his effort. She maintained her hurt and injured air, until at last he could no longer endure her grieved, sad face, and said, in a low tone, "And could you imagine that I regard you, of all others, as weak and un-womanly?"

"What else could I think from your words? I admit I have given you cause to think very poorly of me indeed. Still it's anything but pleasant to be so regarded by those whose esteem we value."

"But I do not think poorly of you, at all," said Hemstead, half desperately. "How little you understand me!"

"I understand you better than you do me. You are a man. You have high aims, and have chosen a noble calling. But you have virtually said that I am only a woman, and a very ordinary one at that, not capable of emulating the lives of my heroic sisters. I must be shielded from the rough wind, while you, in your superiority, can face it as a matter of Course. And your later words intimate that so, figuratively, it will always be, in MY CASE,--weak, womanly, shrinking, and cowering, ever shielded by something or somebody. History, to be sure, records what women MAY do, but that is a very different thing from what Miss Marsden WILL do."

"You go to extremes, Miss Marsden, and infer far more than the occasion warrants," Hemstead replied, in great perplexity. "Was it unnatural that I wished you to be shielded from the cold?"

"And was it unnatural," she answered, "that since one of our party must be exposed to the cold, I should be willing to share in the exposure? But it is to your later words that I refer, and not the trifling incident that led to them. They, with your manner, revealed, perhaps, more than you intended. You once said I was 'capable of the noblest things.' I knew that was not true then, and to my lasting regret, and I proved the fact to you. But I think I have changed somewhat since that time. At least, I hope I am no longer capable of the meanest things."

"Miss Marsden," he said, impetuously, "you now give me credit for knowing you better than at that time--"

"Yes; and you have evidently revised your opinion very materially. But, as I said before, I can scarcely complain, when I remember my own action. But you will never know how bitterly I have repented of my folly. When that terrible charge was made against me last Monday--it came, when I was so happy and hopeful, like a sudden thunderbolt--I thought I should lose my reason. I felt that you had gone away believing I was utterly false and had been insincere in everything from first to last. I was like one who had fallen from a great height, and I scarcely spoke or moved for two days. I was not like some girls, who imagine they can find a remedy for their troubles in wealth and luxury and attention from others. I have had these things all my life, and know how little they are worth--how little they can do for one at such times. No one will ever know what I suffered. At first, when you thought so well of me, I deserved your harshest condemnation. But it did seem cruel, hard, when I was honestly trying to be better--when, at last, my life had become real and true--to be cast aside as a false thing, that must, of necessity, be despised. I dreaded, last night, that you were going away without giving me any chance to explain and correct my folly. I did mean that Monday to tell you the truth, and should have done so, if you had given me a chance. I should have condemned myself then, and I do now, more severely than even you could, who had such just cause for anger. But, Mr. Hemstead, I have changed. In all sincerity I say it, I wish to become a good, Christian girl, and would do so, if I only knew how. I was not deceiving you when I said last Christmas eve that I hoped I had become a Christian. I still think I have, though for two days I was in thick darkness. At any rate, I love my Saviour, and He has helped and comforted me in this greatest trial and sorrow of my life. I was ted to hope that you would forgive me, because He seemed so ready to forgive. There! I have now done what I have been most anxious to do--I have told you the truth. I have said all that I can, justly, in self-defence. If I have not raised your opinion of me very greatly, I cannot help it, for henceforth I intend to be honest, whatever happens."

Lottie had said the words she so wished to speak in a low tone, but with almost passionate earnestness, and no one could have doubted their truth a moment. The horses had been trotting briskly over the level ground at the foot of the steep mountain slope, and the noisy bells that made musical accompaniment to her words, as heard by Hemstead, disguised them from De Forrest and the others. The student received each one as if it were a pearl of great price.

But now the horses, mounting the steep ascent, had come to a walk, and the chime of the bells was not sufficient to drown his words. If he had answered as his feelings dictated, the attention of the others would have been gained in a most embarrassing way. He could only say in a very low voice, "I believe and trust you fully."

But Lottie heard and welcomed the assurance.

The light of the sun, that had been too brilliant upon the snow, was now becoming softened by an increasing haze. The air was growing milder, and the branches of bowed evergreens by the wayside suddenly lifted themselves as the hold of the fleecy burdens was loosened, and the miniature avalanches dropped away. At times they reached points from which the magnificent and broadening landscape could be seen to the best advantage, and as Hemstead stopped the horses at such places to rest, even Bel and Addie abounded in exclamations of delight. The river had become a vast, white plain, and stretched far away to the north. The scene was one that would have filled Hemstead with delight upon any other occasion, but Lottie was now well pleased to note that he gave to it hurried glances and little thought.

His face was a study, and, more clearly than he realized, betrayed the perplexity and trouble of his mind. How could he give up the lovely girl at his side, whose very imperfection and need won more upon him than any display of conscious strength and advanced spirituality? Her frankness, her humility and severe self-condemnation, appealed to every generous trait of his large, charitable nature. He now believed, as never before, that she was "capable of the noblest things," and he began to suffer from the torturing thought that his course was a mistaken one, and that he wronged her by acting upon the supposition that her old surroundings of luxury and culture were essential to her happiness. Might it not be true that, in a nature like hers, something far more profound was needed to create and sustain true serenity of heart? Had she not in effect plainly said that she had fathomed the shallow depths of luxury, wealth, and general flattering attention? Had she not unconsciously given him a severe rebuke? What right had he to assume that he was any more capable of heroic self-sacrifice than she? Only the certainty that he was sacrificing himself for her happiness enabled him to make the sacrifice at all, and now he began to think that his course might be a wretched blunder which would blight them both. The very possibility of making such a mistake was agony. To have come so near happiness, and then to miss it by as great a wrong to her as to himself, would be more than fortitude itself could endure. His uncle's words were ever present: "If Lottie loved, it would be no half-way business. He had no right to sacrifice her happiness." It was her happiness that he was thinking of, and if he could secure it best by consummating his own at the same time, it seemed to him that heaven would begin at once.

A trivial circumstance had enabled Lottie to intimate plainly to him that he had virtually asserted, "I am a man, and can do that of which only the noblest and most unselfish natures are capable. You are not only a woman, but you cannot rise to the level of many of your sisters, who have left on history's page the heroic record of their triumphs over the supposed weakness of their sex." What he had not meant, but still had appeared to hint from his language, was he not, in fact, practically acting upon as true? While he had taken his course in the spirit of the most generous self-sacrifice, might he not, at the same time, be ignoring the fact that she was as capable of self-sacrifice and noble consecration to a sacred cause as himself?

If she had been sincere in her religious experiences, and in all her words and actions in that direction, how could he help believing that she was equally sincere in the language of tone and eye, which had revealed her heart so plainly that even he, who was the last in the world to presume, had come to think that she loved him? And yet he was about to make his life, and perhaps hers also, one long regret, because he had quietly assumed that she was one of those women whose life depends on surroundings, and to whose souls mere things can minister more than love and the consciousness of an heroic devotion to a sacred cause. Lottie had skilfully and clearly given the impression she sought to convey; and this impression, uniting with the student's love, formed a combination whose assaults caused his supposed inflexible purpose to waver.

Lottie's quick intuition enabled her to see that she had led him far enough at present, while they were in such close proximity to jealous, observant eyes and attentive ears, and so, with equal tact, she led his thoughts to more tranquillizing topics. She was employing all the skill and finesse of which she had been mistress in the days of her insincerity and heartless coquetry. These gifts were still hers, as much as ever. But now they were under the control of conscience, and would henceforth be used to secure and promote happiness, not to destroy it.

And she felt that she had need of tact and skill. The situation was not so very peculiar. Many had passed through just such experiences before, but have all passed on to lives of consummated happiness? She loved the man at her side devotedly, and was perfectly aware of his love for her, and yet woman's silence was upon her lips. They were soon to separate, not to meet again for many years, if ever. She could not speak. If from any motive, even the noblest, he did not speak, how could she meet the long, lonely future, in which every day would make more clear the dreary truth that she had missed her true life and happiness?--missed it through no necessity that might in the end bring resignation, but through a mistake,--the unselfish blundering of a man who wrongly supposed she could be happier without than with him. It was her delicate task to show him, without abating one jot of woman's jealous reserve, that she was capable of all the self-sacrifice to which he looked forward, and that, as his uncle had told him, he had no right to sacrifice her happiness.

He was one of those single-hearted, resolute fellows, who have the greatest faculty for persistently blundering under an honest but wrong impression. But, in this case, his impression was natural, and he was wrong, only because Lottie was "capable of noble things,"--only because she did belong to that class of women to whom the love of their heart counts for infinitely more than all externals. If he had fallen in love with a very goodish sort of girl of the Bel Parton type, the course he had marked out would have been the wisest and best, eventually, for both, even though it involved, at first, a good deal of suffering.

When a wife assures her husband, by word or manner, "You took advantage of my love and inexperience to commit me to a life and condition that are distasteful or revolting, and you have thereby inflicted an irreparable injury," the man, if he be fine-fibred and sensitive, can only look forward to a painful and aggravated form of martyrdom. One had better live alone as long as Methuselah than induce a small-souled woman to enter with him on a life involving continual sacrifice. With such women, some men can be tolerably happy, if they have the means to carry out the "gilded cage" principle; but woe to them both if the gilded cage is broken or lost, and they have to go out into the great world and build their nest wherever they can.

Providence had given to Lottie the chance to live the life of ideal womanhood,--the life of love and devotion,--and she did not mean to lose it. While her high spirit would often chafe with a little wholesome friction, it would yet grow sweeter and more patient under the trials of the hardest lot, if they could only be endured at his side to whom, by some mystic necessity of her being, she had given her heart.

Therefore, with unmingled satisfaction she saw that she was sapping the student's ctern resolution not to speak. She would, by a witchery as innocent as subtile, beguile him into just the opposite of what he had proposed. As she had declared to her uncle, he should ask her, in a very humble manner, to become a home missionary, and she, under the circumstances, was more ready to comply than to become Empress of all the Russias.

But, during the remainder of the ride, she made the time pass all too quickly, as she led him to speak of his student life, his Western home, and especially of his mother; and Lottie smiled appreciatively over the enthusiasm and affection which he manifested for one concerning whom she had ever heard Mrs. Marchmont speak a little slightingly. The genuine interest which she took in all that related to Mrs. Hemstead touched the young man very closely, and his whole nature was getting under arms against what his heart was beginning to characterize as a most unnatural and stupid resolution.

De Forrest was greatly relieved as he heard Hemstead describing his humble, farm-house home and toiling mother; for the student softened none of the hard outlines of their comparative poverty.

"The great fool!" thought the exquisite. "Even if Lottie were inclined to care for him somewhat, he has repelled her now by revealing his common and poverty-stricken surroundings."

But as Lottie became satisfied that Hemstead would not be able to go away in silence, a new cause of trouble and perplexity claimed her attention. Not that she had not thought of it often since she had realized how irrevocably she had given her love, but other and more immediate questions had occupied her mind. How was she to reconcile her fashionable mother and worldly father to her choice? She clearly recognized that what to her seemed the most natural--indeed, the only thing in life left for her--would appear to one simply monstrous, and to the other the baldest folly.

She loved her parents sincerely, for, with all her faults, she had never been cold-hearted; and, while she proposed to be resolute, it was with the deepest anxiety and regret that she foresaw the inevitable conflict.

But when she was at a loss to think of anything that could be said to soften the blow, or make her course appear right or reasonable, as they would look at it, a circumstance occurred which led, as she then believed, to the solution of the problem.

After driving between two and three hours, they reached West Point in safety, and, as they were passing along by the officers' quarters, Lottie recognized a young lady who was one of her most intimate city friends, and who, she soon learned, was making a visit in the country, like herself. Lottie told Bel and Addie to go on to the dancing-hall, while she called on her friend, adding, "I will soon join you."

The relations between Lottie and her friend were rather confidential, and the latter soon bubbled over with her secret. She was engaged to a cadet, who would graduate in the following June.

"But he is away down towards the end of his class, and so, of course, will have to go out upon the Plains," she said, with a little sigh.

"What will you do then?" asked Lottie, quickly, a bright thought striking her. "You surely will not exchange your elegant city home for barracks in some remote fort, where you may be scalped any night?"

"I surely will," said the vivacious young lady; "and if you ever become half as much in love as I am, it won't seem a bit strange."

"But what do your parents say to all this?"

"O, well, of course they would much prefer that I should marry and settle in New York. But then, you know, mother always had a great admiration for the army, and it's quite the thing, in fashionable life, to marry into the army and navy. Why, bless you, Lottie, nearly all the ladies on the post have seen the roughest times imaginable on the frontier, and they come from as good families, and very many of them have left as good homes as mine."

"But how are you going to live on a lieutenant's pay? I have known you to spend more than that on your own dress in a single year."

"What are dresses compared with Lieutenant Ransom? I can learn to economize as well as the rest of them. You can't have everything, Lottie. You know what an officer's rank is. It gives him the entree into the best society of the land, and often opens the way for the most brilliant career. These things reconcile father and mother to it, but I look at the man himself. He's just splendid! Come, we'll go over to the hall, and I will introduce you, and let you dance with him once,--only once, you incorrigible flirt, or you will steal him away from me after all. By the way, who was that handsome man who drove? I fear you bewitched him coming over the mountain, from the way his eyes followed you."

"How does he compare with your Lieutenant Ransom?" asked Lottie.

"No one can compare with him. But why do you ask? Is there anything serious?"

"Will you think so when I tell you that he enters, next summer, on the life of a home missionary on the Western frontier?"

"O, how dismal!" exclaimed the young lady. "No, indeed! no danger of your giving him serious thoughts. But you ought not to flirt with such a man, Lottie."

"I do not intend to, nor with any one else, any more. But why do you say 'How dismal'? Your lieutenant will have as rough a frontier life as Mr. Hemstead, and, surely, the calling of the ministry is second to none."

"Well, it seems very different. Nobody thinks much of a home missionary. Why, Lottie, none of our set ever married a home missionary, while several have married into the army and navy. So, for heaven's sake, don't let your head become turned by one who looks forward to such a forlorn life. But here we are, and I will make you envious in a moment."

"Miss Marsden," said Hemstead, stepping forward as they were entering, "I do not like to hasten you, but there is every appearance of a storm, and the wind is rising. I wish you could induce Addie to start soon. I will go to the Trophy room for a little while, and then will drive around."

"You may rest assured I will do my best," said Lottie. "I am ready to start now."

"Beware of that man," said her friend; "his eyes tell the same story that I see in Lieutenant Ransom's."

"You have become a little lady of one idea," said Lottie, laughing and blushing, "and all the world is in love, in your estimation."

When Hemstead drove to the door, the snow-flakes were beginning to fly, and the wind had increased in force. But Bel was not ready, and Addie would not hear of their going till the hours set apart for dancing were over. Even then she permitted her cadet friends to detain her several minutes longer.

As the others were, in a certain sense, her guests, they were delicate about urging her departure. Thus it happened that the early December twilight was coming on, and the air was full of wildly-flying snow, as the last words were said, and the horses dashed off for the mountains.

But the storm increased in violence every moment, and the air was so filled with flakes that the young people could not see twenty feet before them. What caused Hemstead uneasiness was the fact that the sheltered road that led from the Point along the southern base of the mountains, for a long distance before coming to any great ascent, was already somewhat clogged with drifts. Above, on the mountain's crest, he heard a sound as if the north wind were blowing strongly.

He grew very anxious, and finally said, as they reached the point where the road began to rise rapidly, that he thought the attempt to cross that night involved much risk. But Addie would not hear of their returning. Her mother would go wild about them, and would never let her come again.

"It has not snowed very much yet, and if we wait till to-morrow it may be very deep."

"The drifts are what I fear," said Hemstead.

"There were no bad drifts this afternoon," said Addie, "and surely they cannot be deep yet."

Since the following day was Sunday, and New Year's also, it was agreed that they should push on. To return would involve much that was disagreeable to the party, and create great alarm at Mrs. Marchmont's.

"It will just result in their sending after us, this dreadful night," said Addie. "I don't see why it must storm just when one most wishes it wouldn't."

"We ought to have started sooner," said Bel. "I knew the delay was very wrong, but we were having such a good time."

De Forrest, having vainly sought to get Lottie to sit with him, had sulkily taken his seat just behind her and Hemstead, where he was the most sheltered of the party, and, not supposing there was any real danger, had muffled himself up so that he was almost past speaking or hearing. He had nearly resolved with some sullenness to let matters take their course until the "cursed visit was over." New York, and not the barbarous, dreary country, was the place where he shone; and when there once more, he would soon regain his old ascendency over Lottie, and she, of course, would forget this Western monster. He noticed, during the first mile, that Hemstead and Lottie scarcely spoke to each other; and, as the storm increased, he concluded there was no danger of their making love when, if they opened their mouths to speak, the wind would fill them with snow.

But Hemstead and Lottie scarcely needed language. The old, subtile interchange of thought and sympathy had been regained. Every moment she bravely sat with him facing the storm that wild night seemed an assurance that she was both able and willing to face every storm of life at his side.

But as the wind grew more violent, and drove the sharp crystals into their faces with stinging force, he, out of regard for her comfort, said: "Miss Marsden, it is both brave and kind of you to sit here so patiently, but really the wind is growing too severe. Even if I had had the impression which you were so mistaken as to charge me with, long before this it would have been banished forever by your words and action. If you will take the next seat, and sit with your back to the wind, you will not feel it half so much."

"Will you do the same?" she asked.

"I cannot."

"Then neither can I. I shall keep my word, Mr. Hemstead."

"You are a brave girl, Miss Marsden."

"Well, that is nothing. Why have I not as good a right to be a brave girl as you to be a brave man?"

"You also appear to have the ability."

"O, I don't deserve any credit. I'm not a bit afraid. Indeed, I rather enjoy it. I've plenty of warm blood, and can make as good a fight against the north wind as yourself. This isn't half as hard as facing evil and unhappy thoughts before a blazing fire, and I have had too much of that to do of late to complain of this."

"But it seems a miracle to me that one with your antecedents can regard the situation in any way save with unqualified disgust."

"Do you regard the situation with 'unqualified disgust'?"

"Well, to tell the truth, were it not for my anxiety about getting you all home safely, I was never in a situation to enjoy myself more."

"What precious fools we two must be, in the world's estimation! We both have admitted that we are enjoying ourselves under circumstances in which only Mark Tapley, I think, could be 'jolly';" and the gale bore away her mirthful laugh like a shred from a silver flag.

"O dear!" whined Bel and Addie; "it's perfectly awful."

And awful, indeed, it became, a few minutes later; for, having passed over a steep but sheltered section of the road, they came to a point where the north-east wind struck them strongly. At the same moment the storm appeared to develop into tenfold intensity, and to equal those terrible tempests on the prairies in which Hemstead remembered, with a shudder, that strong men and horses had perished within a few yards of shelter. They, alas! were now a long way from any house, and in the midst of the lonely mountains. It had also become so dark that he had to leave the choice of the road mainly to the horses.

At first these sagacious animals stopped, and refused to go any farther. Hemstead waited a few moments, in hope that the gust or gale would expend itself, and, in the mean time, instinctively put his arm around Lottie, to keep her from being blown off the seat.

"Miss Marsden," he said, close to her ear, "pardon me, but I fear this tempest will carry you away. The horrible thought crossed my mind that you might be caught in a sort of whirlwind and spirited off in this thick darkness where I could not find you."

"Would it trouble you very much if you could not find me?"

"O, don't speak of it! I would give years of my life if you were safe at home."

"Don't be so reckless with your years. I am very well content to be where I am."

"But there is danger."

"There is no more danger for me than for you."

"Are you not afraid?"

"I am just about as much afraid as you are"; and, to his amazement, he found her laughing.

"Well," he exclaimed, "if you can laugh under these circumstances, you exceed any woman I ever read or heard of. We are in twice as much danger as when I went out in the boat the other night."

"Are you now satisfied that Lottie Marsden, in particular, is not weak and cowardly, as compared with her braver sisters?"

Before he could answer, De Forrest growled, "Why don't you go on?"

Addie and Bel were cowering in the bottom of the sleigh, and supposed he was merely giving the horses a rest.

Just then there appeared a momentary lull in the gale; so he merely said: "Forgive me for even seeming to hint to the contrary," and then urged the horses forward.

The road now presented its side to the wind, and so was filled with drifts, while its lower side was a precipitous bank that shelved off into unknown depths. The horses plunged with difficulty through one drift, and the sleigh tipped dangerously. Addie and Bel screamed, and De Forrest began, in trepidation, to realize their situation.

The poor beasts were soon floundering through another drift. Suddenly there came a sharp crack, as if something had broken, and one of the horses appeared to have fallen. Worse still, the lower runner of the sleigh seemed sinking in the snow to that degree that a moment later they would be overturned into the darkness that yawned in the direction of the steep mountain slope.

Hemstead instantly sprang out on the lower side, with the purpose of preventing the accident. Lottie as quickly sprang out on the upper side, and cried: "You push, and I will hold"; and so it happened that she did quite as much as he in saving the party from disaster. Indeed, if the sleigh had gone over, it would have carried him who was on the lower side down with it.

The horses, in their wise instinct, keeping still, Hemstead first came round to where Lottie stood.

"Why, Miss Marsden!" he exclaimed, "you are up to your waist in the snow."

"Well, it won't drown me. This is a great deal better than rolling down the mountain."

"I could kneel at your feet," said the student, fervently.

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Lottie. "You couldn't find them."

"This is no laughing matter," said De Forrest, at last aroused to their danger, and standing up for the first time.

"Then get out and do something, like Miss Marsden," said Hemstead. "Come, right up the sleigh while I look after the horses."

A little later he came back to Lottie, and said: "Miss Marsden, I scarcely dare tell you the truth. The tongue of the sleigh and some of the most important parts of the harness are broken. Besides, I have been up the road a short distance, and there are drifts that are up to the horses' necks. I fear we can go no farther. O God!" he added in agony, "what can I do for you? The idea of your perishing with cold in this horrible place to-night!"

Lottie laid her hand upon his arm, and said earnestly; "Mr. Hemstead, please let there be no more such talk. It's no worse for me than for you. Besides, if we will trust God and use our wits, there is no need of any one's perishing. If we were out of the wind it would not be so very cold. Why, there is enough warmth in the big bodies of those horses to keep us from freezing, if it comes to the worst."

"There!" he exclaimed, "you have given me hope and courage, and in a sentence. The coachman was captain on my former occasion of danger, and you shall be captain now. You have the clearest and best head of the party. I am at your service."

"Will you do as I bid you?"

"Yes"

"Take care of yourself somewhat, then."

"I can best do that by taking care of you."

"You can do nothing pleasing to me that will bring harm to yourself," she said. "We must get out of the wind, and if nothing better offers, must bury ourselves in the snow be-side the horses. I remember reading of such things. The sleigh robes and the warmth of their bodies would keep us from freezing; I'm not so very cold."

Addie and Bel were crying bitterly, while De Forrest was groaning and cursing from where he stood, behind the sleigh.

"Come," he shouted, "what's to be done?"

"I will go straight up the bank. I may find a ledge, or some rocks, under which we may cower," said Hemstead.

"Don't go far," said Lottie, eagerly. "I should, indeed, lose hope, if you became separated from us."

He soon returned with the joyful news that a little way up the bank was a high ledge, where they would be completely sheltered from the wind.

Soon he had them all under it, and the respite from the driving gale was welcomed by none more than by Lottie, who, in spite of her courage and sustaining excitement, was beginning to suffer greatly.

De Forrest, being a smoker, had matches; but, in his impatience to light a fire, destroyed most of them.

"Here, Julian, give them to me," said Lottie, most decisively.

Then, after all the dry material which could be collected, by groping round in the dark, was gathered in the most sheltered nook, she took from her pocket a delicate lace handkerchief, and, by means of that, lighted the sticks and leaves. Soon they were warming their numb hands and chilled bodies beside a cheerful blaze.

Hemstead watched Lottie with wondering and increasing admiration. In securing a fire, they escaped all immediate danger, and she became as cheery as if the disaster, which had threatened even a fatal termination, were only an episode, and the long, wintry bivouac, in that desolate place, but a picnic in the woods.

"You are the queerest girl I ever knew, Lottie," said Bel.

"She means by that, you are the best," Hemstead added.

"Come, this is no time for compliments, but for work," said Lottie, energetically, and she set De Forrest at it also.

The robes were brought from the sleigh, and after the snow had been trampled down and cleared away between the fire and the ledge, here they were spread. Addie and Bel were, at first, terror-stricken at the thought of spending the night in the mountains, but were made so comfortable that, at last, their tears ceased.

"Our best hope is this brandy," said De Forrest, drawing a flask from his pocket.

"Nonsense!" said Lottie. "Our best hope is keeping our senses and a good fire."

But Bel and Addie were ready enough to take the brandy, and were soon sleeping heavily from its effects, combined with their exposure to the cold wind. Lottie could not be prevailed upon to take any.

"I want the use of my senses to-night, if ever," she said. "We must take turns in keeping awake, and you shall have the first watch, Julian."

Hemstead, at this time, was down getting the horses out of the drift, that he might tie them near the fire and also under the ledge. De Forrest set to work very zealously under the stimulus of Lottie's words and the brandy combined, and gathered the brush-wood that lay near, and piled it on the fire. Everything seemed to promise well, and the wearied girl laid herself down by the side of Bel and Addie, and was soon sleeping as naturally and peacefully as if in her luxurious apartment at home. _

Read next: Chapter 37. In Earnest

Read previous: Chapter 35. Mr. Dimmerly Concludes To "Meddle"

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