She drew short, gasping breaths, as if she were on a high
mountain-top. The cold strengthened as the daylight waned. The very
air seemed frozen and resolved into a cutting diamond-dust of frost.
Suddenly Madelon awoke to the fear that she could not walk much
farther. She had eaten nothing since morning; the cold and fatigue
were consuming her life as the flame consumes the wick of the lamp
when the oil is lacking.

"I must get there!" she said to herself. She stamped her numb feet
desperately. She beat herself pitilessly with her stiff hands. She
set forth on a run towards Kingston, and quickened her blood a little
in that way, although she panted and fairly gasped for breath.

She drew a sigh of relief when she gained the last rise in the road,
and the town of Kingston lay before her a mile in the valley. It was
growing dark and the village lights were coming out when she had
passed the straggling farms and come into the little centre of the
town where the stores, the meeting-houses, and the tavern were
grouped.

The village main street looked almost deserted. There was only one
sleigh in sight, drawn up in front of the store. The horse was well
covered with a buffalo-skin and an old bed-quilt in addition, which
his master's wife had doubtless provided on account of the terrible
cold.

As Madelon reached the store a man came out with a molasses-jug in
hand and arms clasping parcels, which he began stowing away under the
seat of the sleigh. Madelon went up to him. "Can you tell me where
Mr. Otis lives?" said she. She could scarcely enunciate. Her very