In the
Heart of the
Christmas Pines

Contents

The Illustrations

I

A ruined mill with dripping eaves, a grinding shudder of brakes, and the train halted. With quick interest in her eyes, the traveler alighted, but outside on the sodden village platform her interest fled panic-stricken in an overpowering surge of loneliness and dismay. Surely, surely, thought Jean Varian, a bleak enough goal for her odd caprice! Great, wind-beaten trees dripped above the village and the covered bridge; fog-ridden hills towered in the distance like ghostly gables of the valley; and at the head of the street in the old-fashioned hotel to which days before she had whimsically written for rooms, only a single unpromising light flickered dully through the wind and rain.

But the night was settling rapidly and with a careless direction to the staring baggageman, Jean Varian turned away into the muddy street and made her way to the hotel where a man in boots with a