To these queries, there came no answer, save the mournful wailing of the night wind roaring down the chimney and past the sleet-covered window, but Hugh was a happier man for reading that, and had there before existed a doubt as to his duty toward Adah, this would have swept it away. Bending closer to the fire, Hugh read the chapter through, wondering why he should feel so much better, and why the world looked brighter than it had an hour before. If it made folks feel so nice to read a little bit in the Bible, how would they feel to read it through? He meant to try and see, beginning at Genesis the very next night, and hiding his treasure away, Hugh sought his pillow just as the first greyish streak of daylight was beginning to show in the east. CHAPTER IV TERRACE HILL. The storm which visited Kentucky so wrathfully was far milder among the New England hills, and in the vicinity of Snowdon, whither our story now tends, was scarcely noticed, save as an ordinary winter’s storm. There were no drifts against the fences, no driving sleet, no sheets of ice covering the valleys, nothing save a dark, sour, dreary day, when the grey December clouds seemed wading in the piles of snow, which, as the sun went down, began to fall in those small misty flakes, which betoken a storm of some duration. As yet it had been comparatively warmer in New England than in Kentucky; and Miss Anna Richards, confirmed invalid though she was, had decided not to take her usual trip to the South, so comfortable was she at home, in her accustomed chair, with her pretty crimson shawl wrapped around her. Besides that, they were expecting her brother John from Paris, where he had been for the last eighteen months, pursuing his medical profession, and she must be there to welcome him. Anna was proud of her young, handsome brother, for on him and his success in life, all their future hopes were pending. _All_ were proud of John, and all had petted and spoiled him, from his precise lady mother, down to invalid Anna, who, more than any one else, was anxious for his return, and who had entered, with a good deal of interest into the preparations which, for a week or more, had kept Terrace Hill Mansion in a state of bustle and excitement, for John was so refined and fastidious in his tastes, that he was sure to notice if aught were amiss or out of place. Consequently great pains was taken with his room, while Anna, who had a private purse of her own, went into the extravagance of furnishing a new carpet of more modern style than the heavy, old-fashioned Brussels, which for years, had covered the floor.