had blown as softly as if it had just kissed the wave of some southern
sea, where it is summer always. But with the dawning of Thanksgiving
Day, there was a change, and the carriage which was sent from Grey's
Park to the station to meet the guests from Boston was covered with
snow, and Mrs. Geraldine shivered, and drew her fur-lined cloak more
closely around her as she stepped from the train, and looking ruefully
down at her little French boots, said petulantly:

"Why do they never clear the snow from the platform, I wonder, and how
am I to walk to the carriage? It is positively ankle deep, and I with
silk stockings on!"

Mrs. Geraldine was not in an enviable frame of mind. She had declined an
invitation to a grand dinner party, for the sake of going to Allington,
where it was always snowing or raining or doing something disagreeable,
and her face was anything but pleasant as she stood there in the snow.

A very slave to her opinions and wishes, her husband always thought as
she thought, and fondly agreed with her that going to Allington was a
bore, and that he did not know how she was to wade through all that snow
in thin boots and silk stockings, and not endanger her life by the
exposure.

Only Grey was happy; Grey, grown from the blue-eyed baby boy, who used
to dig his little heels so vigorously into the rotten base-board under
the bench in the wood-shed of the farm house, into the tall, blue-eyed,
open-faced lad of fourteen, of whom it could be truly said that never
had his parents been called upon to blush for a mean or vicious act
committed by him. Faulty he was, of course, with a hot temper when
roused, and a strong, indomitable will, which, however, was seldom