through the garden and down the lane, which had made her shoulders
strong!

Benny Withers was eight years old, but he was small and slender, and
no heavier than six-year-old Philip. No need of telling the child to
hold on, once he was up out of the cruel snow bed. He clung
desperately round the girl's neck, and pressed his head close
against the woollen stuff.

Maine pulled her ball of twine from her pocket--fortunately it was a
large one, and the twine, though strong, was fine, so that there
seemed to be no end to it--and once more lowered her head, and set
her teeth, and moved forward, keeping close to the wall, in the
direction of Mrs. Withers's cottage.

For awhile she saw nothing, when she looked up under the fringe of
otter fur, which, long and soft, kept the snow from blinding her;
nothing but the white, whirling drift which beat with icy, stinging
blows in her face. But at last her eyes caught a faint glimmer of
light, and presently a brighter gleam showed her Mrs. Withers's gray
cottage, now white like the rest of the world.

Bursting open the cottage door, she almost threw the child into the
arms of his mother.

The woman, who had been weeping wildly, could hardly believe her eyes.
She caught the little boy and smothered him with kisses, chafing his
cold hands, and crying over him.

"I didn't know!" she said. "I didn't know till he was gone. I told