“I ain’t likely to tell you very frequent how much I—I think of you. Ahem! But you’d better stop worrying about such things as money and the like. What I’ve got comes pretty near belonging to you. Anyway, unless I have to go to the poorhouse myself, I reckon you needn’t worry about going,” and he coughed again drily. “As far as us loving you—Well, your Aunty Rose loves you.” “Oh, I know she does!” agreed Carolyn May, nodding. “Hum! How do you know that so well, and yet you don’t know that I love you?” “Oh—well—now,” stammered Carolyn May, “when there isn’t anybody else around but Aunty Rose and me, she tells me so.” “Hum!” Mr. Stagg cleared his throat. “Well, there isn’t anybody else around here but you and me—and the dog,” and his eyes twinkled; “so I’ll admit, under cross-examination, that I love you.” “Oh, Uncle Joe!” She bounded at him, sobbing and laughing. “Is it really so? Do you?” For the first time Joseph Stagg lifted her upon his knee. She snuggled up against his vest and put one little arm around his neck—as far as it would go. “_Dear_ Uncle Joe!” she sighed ecstatically. “I don’t mind if I _am_ charity. If you love me, it takes all the sting out. And I’ll help to make you happy, too!” “Bless me, child!” came huskily, “ain’t I happy enough?” “Why, Uncle Joe, I don’t believe you can be really and truly happy, when you are always worrying about business. You don’t ever seem to have time to _look up_ and see the sky, or stop to hear the birds sing. “Seems to me, Uncle Joe,” concluded Carolyn May, giving a happy little jump on his lap, “that if you let your mind sort o’ run on—on something besides hardware once in a while, maybe you would have time to show me how _much_ you loved me. Then I wouldn’t have to ask.” The man looked at her somewhat blankly. Then he turned his head, ran his hand through his bushy hair, and gazed away meditatively. The little girl had awakened his heart. And that heart was very, very sore. CHAPTER XIV—A FIND IN THE DRIFTS Before the week was over, winter had come to Sunrise Cove and The Corners in earnest. Snow fell and drifted, until there was scarcely anything to be seen one morning when Carolyn May awoke and looked out of her bedroom windows but a white, fleecy mantle. This was more snow than the little girl had ever seen in New York. She came down to breakfast very much excited. “What are we going to do about all this snow?” she asked. “Why! there isn’t any janitor to shovel off the walk, and no street cleaners to clear the crosswalks! How am I ever going to get to school?” “I reckon you’ll get to school, all right, if the men get through with the ploughs before half-past eight. And if Miss Minnie gets here,” chuckled Uncle Joe. He went out and fed the fowls for Aunty Rose and did the other chores. But when he started for the store, promising to send Chet Gormley up to dig the paths, he had to wade through drifts higher than the top rail of the fences.