leisurely by a handsome, gray-haired man with a quiet, refined-looking face.

“Tom—oh, Tom!” exclaimed Bessie, almost jumping into his arms, as he opened the carriage door. “Were mother and Hattie very frightened? Why, there is father!” as Dr. Lambert hurried up.

“My dear child, how thankful I am to see you! Why, she looks quite fresh, Tom.”

“As fit as possible,” echoed Tom.

“Yes, I am only cold. Father, the guard put me in with a young lady. She was going to London, but it is too late for her to travel alone, and she is afraid of going to a hotel. May I bring her home? Her name is Edna Sefton. She lives at The Grange, Oatlands.”

Dr. Lambert seemed somewhat taken aback by his daughter’s speech.

“Edna Sefton! Why, that is Eleanor Sefton’s daughter! What a strange coincidence!” And then he muttered to himself, “Eleanor Sartoris’ daughter under our roof! I wonder what Dora will say?” And then he turned to the fair, striking-looking girl whom Tom was assisting with all the alacrity that a young man generally shows to a pretty girl: “Miss Sefton, you will be heartily welcome for your mother’s sake; she and I were great friends in the ’auld lang syne.’ Will you come with me? I have a fly waiting for Bessie; my son will look after the luggage;” and Edna obeyed him with the docility of a child.

But she glanced at him curiously once or twice as she walked beside him. “What a gentlemanly, handsome man he was!” she thought. Yes, he looked like a doctor; he had the easy, kindly manner which generally belongs to the profession. She had never thought much about her own father, but to-night, as they drove through the lighted streets, her thoughts, oddly enough, recurred to him. Dr. Lambert was sitting opposite the two girls, but his eyes were fixed oftenest on his daughter.

“Your mother was very anxious and nervous,” he said, “and so was Hatty, when Tom brought us word that the train was snowed up in Sheen Valley I had to scold Hatty, and tell her she was a goose; but mother was nearly as bad; she can’t do without her crutch, eh, Bessie?” with a gleam of tenderness in his eyes, as they rested on his girl.

Edna felt a little lump in her throat, though she hardly knew why; perhaps she was tired and over-strained; she had never missed her father before, but she fought against the feeling of depression.

“I am so sorry your son has to walk,” she said politely; but Dr. Lambert only smiled.

“A walk will not hurt him, and our roads are very steep.”

As he spoke, the driver got down, and Bessie begged leave to follow his example.

“We live on the top of the hill,” she said apologetically; “and I cannot bear being dragged up by a tired horse, as father knows by this time;” and she joined her brother, who came up at that moment.

Tom had kept the fly well in sight.

“That’s an awfully jolly-looking girl, Betty,” he observed, with the free and easy criticism of his age. “I don’t know when I have seen a prettier girl; uncommon style, too—fair hair and dark eyes; she is a regular beauty.”

“That is what boys always think about,” returned Bessie, with good-humored contempt. “Girls are different. I should be just as much interested in Miss Sefton if she were plain. I suppose you mean to be charmed with her conversation, and to find all her remarks witty because she has les beaux yeux.”

“I scorn to take notice of such spiteful remarks,” returned Tom, with a shrug. “Girls are venomous to each other. I believe they hate to hear one another praised, even by a brother.”

“Hold your tongue, Tom,” was the rejoinder. “It takes my breath away to argue with you up this hill. I am not too ill-natured to give up my own bed to Miss Sefton. Let us hurry on, there’s a good boy, or they will arrive before us.”

As this request coincided with Tom’s private wishes, he condescended to walk faster; and the brother and sister were soon at the top of the hill, and had turned into a pretty private road bordered with trees, with detached houses standing far back, with long, sloping strips of gardens. The moon had now risen, and Bessie could distinctly see a little group of girls, with shawls over their heads, standing on the top of a flight of stone steps leading down to a large shady garden belonging to an old-fashioned house. The front entrance was round the corner, but the drawing-room window was open, and the girls had gained the road by the garden way, and stood shivering and expectant; while the moon illumined the grass terraces that ran steeply from the house, and shone on the meadow that skirted the garden.

“Run in, girls; you will catch cold,” called out Bessie; but her prudent suggestion was of no avail, for a tall, lanky girl rushed into the road with the rapturous exclamation, “Why, it is our Bessie after all, though she looked so tall in the moonlight, and I did not know Tom’s new ulster.” And here Bessie was fallen upon and kissed, and handed from one to another of the group, and then borne rapidly down the steps and across the terrace to the open window.

“Here she is, mother; here is our Bessie, not a bit the worse. And Hatty ought to be ashamed of herself for making us all miserable!” exclaimed Katie.

“My Hatty sha’n’t be scolded. Mother, dear, if you only knew how sweet home looks after the Sheen Valley! Don’t smother me any more, girls. I want to tell you something that will surprise you;” and Bessie, still holding her mother’s hand, but looking at Hatty, gave a rapid and somewhat indistinct account of her meeting with Edna Sefton.

“And she will have my room, mother,” continued Bessie, a little incoherently, for she was tired and breathless, and the girl’s exclamations were so bewildering.

Mrs. Lambert, a pale, care-worn woman, with a sweet pathetic sort of face, was listening with much perplexity, which was not lessened by the sight of her husband ushering into the room a handsome-looking girl, dressed in the most expensive fashion.

“Dora, my dear, this is Bessie’s fellow-sufferer in the snowdrift; we must make much of her, for she is the daughter of my old friend, Eleanor Sartoris—Mrs. Sefton now. Bessie has offered her her own room to-night, as it is too late for her to travel to London.”

A quick look passed between the husband and wife, and a faint color came to Mrs. Lambert’s face, but she was too well-bred to express her astonishment.

“You are very welcome, my dear,” she said quietly. “We will make you as comfortable as we can. These are all my girls,” and she mentioned their names.

“What a lot of girls,” thought Edna. She was not a bit shy by nature, and somehow the situation amused her. “What a comfortable, homelike room, and what a lovely fire! And—well, of course, they were not rich; any one could see that; but they were nice, kind people.”

“This is better than the snowdrift,” she said, with a beaming smile, as Dr. Lambert placed her in his own easy chair, and Tom brought her a footstool and handed her a screen, and her old acquaintance Bessie helped her to remove her wraps. The whole family gathered round her, intent on hospitality to the bewitching stranger—only the “Crutch,” as Tom called her, tripped away to order Jane to light a fire in her room, and to give out the clean linen for the unexpected guest, and to put a few finishing touches to the supper-table.

The others did not miss her at first. Christine, a tall, graceful girl who had inherited her father’s good looks, was questioning Edna about the journey, and the rest