206 TROTTYS WEDDING TOUR.

drifts blinked at her, and the icicles and the slated roofs and
sky, and the people’s faces smiled at her!

“ What is the matter?” asked the young lady; for Deb
drew the great gray wolf’s-robe over her face and head; and
sat so, for a minute, still and hidden. The young lady thought
that she was frightened.

“But I only want to cry a little!” said Deb’s little
smothered voice. ‘“ I must cry a little first!”

When she had cried a little, she held up her head, and the
shine of her pretty white hood grew faint beside the shine of
her eyes and cheeks. That bewildering, beautiful, blessed
ride !

Streets and a crowd and church-spires were in it,— yes,
and a wedding and a funeral too; all that Deb had seen in
her high chair in the daytime, with her eyes shut, she saw in
the sleigh on that ride, with her happy eyes open wide.

She sat very still. The young lady did not talk to her,
and she did not talk to the young lady. They rode and rode.
The horse held up his head. It seemed to Deb that he was
flying. She thought that he must be like the awful, beautiful
white horse in Revelation. She felt as if he could take her
to heaven just as well as not, if the young lady’s brown gloves
should only pull the rein that way.

They rode and rode. In and out of the merry streets,
through and through the singing bells, about and about the
great church-spires, — all over and over and over the laugh-
ing town. They rode to the river, and the young lady