bareheaded in the cold, and gave one shout. Lem heeded him not; did not
stop there as usual, but drove straight to the tannery house and pulled
up under the butternut tree. Milly Skinner ran out on the porch, and gave
one long look, and cried:--

"Good Lord, it's Cynthy!"

"Where's Jethro?" demanded Lem.

Milly did not answer at once. She was staring at Cynthia.

"He's in the tannery shed," she said, "choppin' wood." But still she kept
her eyes on Cynthia's face. "I'll fetch him."

"No," said Cynthia, "I'll go to him there."

She took the path, leaving Millicent with her mouth open, too amazed to
speak again, and yet not knowing why.

In the tannery shed! Would Jethro remember what happened there almost six
and thirty years before? Would he remember how that other Cynthia had
come to him there, and what her appeal had been?

Cynthia came to the doors. One of these was open now--both had been
closed that other evening against the storm of sleet--and she caught a
glimpse of him standing on the floor of chips and bark--tan-bark no more.
Cynthia caught a glimpse of him, and love suddenly welled up into her
heart as waters into a spring after a drought. He had not seen her, not
heard the sound of the sleigh-bells. He was standing with his foot upon
the sawbuck and the saw across his knee, he was staring at the woodpile,