Bessie's Fortune

"What time is Hannah coming?" he asked.

"I hardly know," Lucy replied; "the boy who stays here to do the outdoor work is to bring her as soon as she can leave her father, who will have no one with him in his room during her absence. He is very anxious to see Grey, but I doubt if he will even let him into the bedroom."

During this conversation Grey had listened intently, and now he exclaimed; "I have it. My dinner will taste better if I see grandpa first, and show him my Alpenstock, with all those names burned on it. I mean to drive over after Aunt Hannah myself. It will be such fun to surprise them both."

"Grey, are you crazy to think of going out in this storm?" Mrs. Jerrold exclaimed.

But Grey persisted, and, pointing to the window, said: "It is not snowing half as fast as it did; and look, there's a bit of blue sky. I can go, can't I, Aunt Lucy?"

"Ye-es, if Tom is willing," Lucy said, a little doubtfully; for she stood somewhat in awe of Tom, who did not like to harness oftener than was necessary.

"Pho! I'll risk Tom," Grey said. "Tom knows me;" and in less than ten minutes one of the bays was harnessed to the cutter, and Grey was driving along in the direction of the farm-house, which, for the first time in his life, struck him as something weird-like and dreary, standing there alone among the rocks, with the snow piled upon the roof and clinging in masses to the small window-panes. "I don't wonder mother thinks it seems like some old haunted house we read about. It is just the spot for a lively ghost. I wish I could see one," he thought, as he drove into the side-yard, and, giving his horse to the care of the chore-boy, Sam, who was in the barn, he went stamping into the kitchen.