When the spirit is burning with an impatience which would make the swiftness of the eagle appear slow, how intolerable are the petty difficulties, the unavoidable delays which constantly interpose. Where was a conveyance to be found in Wingsdale to take Flora to the station, which was barely two miles distant? Johnny, a willing messenger, started off in the snow-storm; but though the boy exerted his utmost speed, it appeared a weary age to Flora before he returned. He came back heated and tired, with disappointment in his glowing face. The conveyance which Flora had employed on the previous day had returned to the town, ten miles distant; the doctor, who alone boasted a little carriage in Wingsdale, was out, and might not return before evening; the farmer’s horse had fallen lame;--there was no vehicle of any kind to be procured. "Then I will go on foot. Oh! that I had not delayed!" cried Flora, wringing her hands; "I might have been at the station by this time." In vain the wondering maid of Lady Legrange ventured to expostulate with her mistress, pointed to the cloudy sky and the fast descending snow. No earthly persuasion could stay the wife, not even the anxieties of the daughter. These anxieties, indeed, had been in a certain measure relieved; Mrs. Vernon had awoke calm and refreshed, and had dictated to Lyddie a message of affection to be sent to her Flora, little dreaming that at that moment the same roof covered them both. Flora, accompanied only by her maid, set out on her gloomy journey. The violence of the wind was so great, that umbrellas were left behind as useless, while the falling snow so obscured the view, that the travellers could see but a few yards before them. To Flora, however, the path was so well known that she could have found her way blindfold. The fields were one white level, save where, beside the glistening hedges, the wind had drifted the snow into heaps. Flora’s feet sank into the white mass at each step, she toiled with difficulty along the path; yet urged on by love and fear, she paused not for a moment even to take breath, or to shake the snowflakes from her mantle. She thought not of weariness, she thought not of suffering;--her whole soul was wrapped up in her husband. Surely the road had lengthened since she last trod it--would she never arrive at the place of her destination! At length--at length the station is in sight, the little red-brick building, standing alone where the telegraph posts, with their straight black wires, stand in sharp defined outline against the white back-ground. Ha! there is a sound! Flora starts with an exclamation of distress--it is the shrill scream of the railway whistle--a long black object is rolling away into the distance, swift and swifter! Flora gazes after it with straining eyes, then sinks exhausted on a snow-heap beside the road; no need to hasten on now--she has missed the train--she too late!