Helen had not forgotten her old friend Miss Thusa, whom the rigors of winter confined more closely than ever to her lonely cabin. Almost every day she visited her, and even if the ground were covered with snow, and icicles hung from the trees, there was a path through the woods, printed with fairy foot-tracks, that showed where Helen had walked. Mr. Gleason supplied the solitary spinster with wood ready out for the hearth, had her cottage banked with dark red tan, and furnished her with many comforts and luxuries. He never forgot her devoted attachment to his dead wife, who had commended to his care and kindness the lone woman on her dying bed. Mrs. Gleason frequently accompanied Helen in her visits, and as Miss Thusa said, "always came with full hands and left a full heart behind her." Helen sometimes playfully asked her to tell her the history of the wheel so long promised, but she put her off with a shake of the head, saying--"she should hear it by and by, when the right time was at hand." "But when is the right time, Miss Thusa?" asked Helen. "I begin to think it is to-morrow." "To-morrow never comes," replied Miss Thusa, solemnly, "but death does. When his footsteps cross the old stile and tramp over the mossy door-stones, I'll tell you all about that ancient machine. It won't do any good till then. You are too young yet. I feel better than I did in autumn, and may last longer than I thought I should--but, perhaps, when the ground thaws in the spring the old tree will loosen and fall--or break off suddenly near the root. I have seen such things in my day." "Oh! Miss Thusa," said Helen, "I never want to hear any thing about it, if its history is to be bought so dear--indeed I do not." "Only if you should marry, child, before I die," continued Miss Thusa, musingly, "you shall know then. It is not very probable that such will be the case; but it is astonishing how young girls shoot up into womanhood, now-a-days." "It will be a long time before I shall think of marrying, Miss Thusa," answered Helen, laughing. "I believe I will live as you do, in a cottage of my own, with my wheel for companion and familiar friend." "It is not such as you that are born to live alone," said the spinster, passing her hand lovingly over Helen's fair, warm cheek. "You are a love-vine that must have something to grow upon. No, no--don't talk in that way. It don't sound natural. It don't come from the heart. Now _I_ was made to be by myself. I never saw the man I wanted to live one day with--much less all the days of my life. They may say this is sour grapes, and call me an old maid, but I don't care for that; I must have my own way, and I know it is a strange one; and there never was a man created that didn't want to have his. You laugh, child. I hope you will never find it out to your cost. But you havn't any will of your own; so it will be all as it should be, after all."