Tom got up and walked impatiently to the window. Having accompanied his parents, with a view, to himself wipe away the few natural tears, that he imagined bedewed the rosy cheeks of Little Wolf, and pour into her willing ear a volume of cheering words, as he should ride by her side on their return trip, and, finally, to prevail upon her to reward his unequalled constancy, by becoming his wife, he was quite unprepared to meet the pale anguished face beneath the long black veil of which, for the first time, he caught a glimpse on the funeral day. Having witnessed the quiver that shook her delicate frame, as the grave received its dead, he lost all confidence in his pre-arranged means of consolation, and the words of his mother, not having been calculated to reassure him he was now thoroughly annoyed at the course things had taken. But as Mrs. Tinknor well knew that Tom's feelings were evanescent, and seldom went beyond the surface, she immediately arose to go to Little Wolf, comforting herself with the reflection, that the storm she was leaving would be of short duration. CHAPTER XX. A WEIGHT OF SORROW--MARRYING A DRUNKARD--SUSPENSE. Meantime Little Wolf had not stirred from her place by the window, neither had she withdrawn her gaze from the desolate scene without. All nature was shrouded in snow. On the ground, on every tree and shrub, and in the air; snow was everywhere. But Little Wolf was too much absorbed in her own reflections to bestow a thought upon the raging storm. From the graves of her parents, dimly seen through the whirling flakes, her mind had wandered to an equally painful subject, upon which the timely appearance of her beloved friend, Mrs. Tinknor, gave her the longed for opportunity to converse. She had always confided in that lady, as in a mother, and in the present instance, nothing was witheld pertaining to her feelings past and present towards Edward Sherman, and the relation in which he stood to her. Mrs. Tinknor's previous interview with Tom had in a measure prepared her for Little Wolf's communication, but the tearless eye, so full of anguish, the white cheek and compressed lips, all so unlike her brilliant little friend, struck her painfully; and indignation towards the author of so much wretchedness was the uppermost feeling as, in conclusion, Little Wolf pleadingly asked, "what can I do, my dear Mrs. Tinknor?" Now Mrs. Tinknor was a mild, undemonstrative woman, not prone to giving advice, but the memory of all the wrongs which she had endured through the intemperance of her husband, wrongs which had sunk deep within her bleeding heart, nerved her to raise a warning voice, to save, if possible, one whom she really loved from a life, to which it made her shudder to look forward, and she freely and earnestly answered. "Think no more of one, who, if you were to become his wife, would make your life, beyond all expression, miserable."