“Then let's see if there ain't some way to do it. Perhaps he ain't pulled all the shades down on the other side the house. Lots o' people fergit to do that.” There was but one mind in the party regarding this proposal. The next minute saw us all cautiously sneaking into the side yard, a ragged line of bent and flapping figures, black against the snow. Simeon Peck's expectations were fulfilled--more than fulfilled. Not only were all the shades of the big, three-faced bay-window of the “sitting-room” lifted, but (evidently on account of the too great generosity of a huge log-fire that blazed in the old-fashioned chimney-place) one of the windows was half-raised as well. Here, in the shadow just beyond the rosy oblongs of light that fell upon the snow, we gathered and looked freely within. Part of the room was clear to our view, though about half of it was shut off from us by the very king of all Christmas-trees, glittering with dozens and dozens of candles, sumptuous in silver, sparkling in gold, and laden with Heaven alone knows how many and what delectable enticements. Opposite the Tree, his back against the wall, sat old Bob, clad in a dress of state, part of which consisted of a swallow-tail coat (with an overgrown chrysanthemum in the buttonhole), a red necktie, and a pink-and-silver liberty cap of tissue-paper. He was scraping a fiddle “like old times come again,” and the tune he played was, “Oh, my Liza, po' gal!” My feet shuffled to it in the snow. No one except old Bob was to be seen in the room, but we watched him and listened breathlessly. When he finished “Liza,” he laid the fiddle across his knee, wiped his face with a new and brilliant blue silk handkerchief, and said: “Now come de big speech.” The Honorable David Beasley, carrying a small mahogany table, stepped out from beyond the Christmas-tree, advanced to the centre of the room; set the table down; disappeared for a moment and returned with a white water-pitcher and a glass. He placed these upon the table, bowed gracefully several times, then spoke: “Ladies and gentlemen--” There he paused. “Well,” said Mr. Simeon Peck, slowly, “don't this beat hell!” “Look out!” The “Journal” reporter twitched his sleeve. “Ladies present.” “Where?” said I. He leaned nearer me and spoke in a low tone. “Just behind us. She followed us over from your boarding-house. She's been standing around near us all along. I supposed she was Dowden's daughter, probably.” “He hasn't any daughter,” I said, and stepped back to the hooded figure I had been too absorbed in our quest to notice. It was Miss Apperthwaite. She had thrown a loose cloak over her head and shoulders; but enveloped in it as she was, and crested and epauletted with white, I knew her at once. There was no mistaking her, even in a blizzard. She caught my hand with a strong, quick pressure, and, bending her head to mine, said, close to my ear: