"You may trust that to me. Haven't you seen that I make people do as I wish them to? Do you not believe that I can induce your aunt to let you come, if I continue to want you, and you continue to want to come?" "Perhaps so," I said, half incredulously; "but if I remember right, my Aunt Edith is fond of her own way too, is she not?" "She has that reputation," he answered, with a short laugh. "But _cela ne fait rien_. You shall come if you wish to. Leave it to me, and say nothing about it." "June is a long way off yet, but it is better than two or three years, the term of my 'honorable banishment,' that you first decreed." Before we reached the house, the snow-flakes began to descend, large, and soft, and white, floating down in fast-increasing thickness, "As though life's only call or care Were graceful motion." "How pretty it makes the landscape!" I said, pausing on the steps. "In among the bare trees there, it makes such a charming variety and lightness, and in a few minutes every twig will be feathered with it, and fences, and roofs, and all. Why can't we wait till we have had one sleigh-ride?" "This snow will not amount to anything; we should have to wait a long while for a sleigh-ride. It is too early yet for that entertainment; a fortnight hence will be time enough to expect it." "I think you are mistaken," I said, looking wisely at the clouds, "there's plenty of snow up there, and we shall have enough of it before night, depend upon it. Hadn't we better wait till to-morrow? It would be dreadful to be caught in a heavy snow-storm on the way." "Have you forgotten your good resolutions of last night?" he said, in a low tone. "There's the carriage." And without answering a word I ran upstairs. Kitty wrapped me tenderly in my soft shawl, and fastened my fur tippet carefully round my neck. "Oh, Kitty! you'll smother me!" I cried. But it was something less tangible than tippet or shawl that was smothering me just then, and choking my breath. I gave one glance around the room, thrust a _douceur_ into Kitty's hand, and telling her to bring down my travelling-bag, hurried out without a second look, and downstairs without a second thought, sustained by the determination not to make a baby of myself and cry. The library was empty; I passed on through the hall. Mr. Rutledge was already at the carriage, superintending the packing in it of numerous valises, books, shawls, and packages. Mrs. Roberts, bluer than ever with the cold, stood by him, busy with all the arrangements for his comfort, and looking a shade more cheerless than usual, at the prospect of separation from the master who stood to her lonely old age in the place of son and friend. "I believe she does love him," I thought, and warming toward her at the idea of one redeeming weakness, I walked up to her and said, extending my hand: