right."

"We'll put the little girl between us, Jan," said the young wife.

"Thanks," he returned, "but you needn't trouble yourselves!"

"So you're afraid to trust us with the child?" laughed the man in
the sledge, and drove on.

The foot-farers trudged along under ever-increasing difficulties.
Sledge followed sledge. Every horse in the parish was in harness
that Christmas morning.

"You might have let him take the girl," said Katrina. "I'm afraid
you'll fall with her!"

"What, I let _him_ have my child? What are you thinking of, woman!
Didn't you see who he was?"

"What harm would there have been in letting her ride with the
superintendent of the ironworks?"

Jan Anderson of Ruffluck stood stockstill. "Was that the
superintendent at Doveness?" he said, looking as though he had
just come out of a dream.

"Why of course! Who did you suppose it was?"

Yes, where had Jan's thoughts been? What child had he been
carrying? Where had he intended going? In what land had he