“Apple toddy!” protested Diggs, turning his serious face, flushed from the long ride, upon the Major. “I was too busy thinking we should never get here; and we were lost once, weren't we, Beau?” he asked of Dan. “Well, I for one am safely housed for the night, doctor,” declared the rector, with an uneasy glance through the window, “and I trust that Mrs. Blake's reproach will melt before the snow does. But what's that about being lost, Dan?” “Oh, we got off the road,” replied Dan; “but I gave Prince Rupert the rein and he brought us in. The sense that horse has got makes me fairly ashamed of going to college in his place; and I may as well warn you, Mr. Blake, that when I get ready to go to Heaven, I shan't seek your guidance at all--I'll merely nose Prince Rupert at the Bible and give him his head.” “It's a comfort to know, at least, that you won't be trusting to your own deserts, my boy,” responded the rector, who dearly loved his joke, as he helped himself to yellow pickle. “Let us hope that the straight and narrow way is a little clearer than the tavern road to-night,” said Champe. “I'm afraid you'll have trouble getting back, Governor.” “Afraid!” took up the Major, before the Governor could reply. “Why, where are your manners, my lad? It will be no ill wind that keeps them beneath our roof. We'll make room for you, ladies, never fear; the house will stretch itself to fit the welcome, eh, Molly?” Mrs. Lightfoot, looking a little anxious, put forward a hearty assent; but the Governor laughed and threw back the Major's hospitality as easily as it was proffered. “I know that your welcome's big enough to hold us, my dear Major,” he said; “but Hosea's driving us, you see, and he could take us along the turnpike blindfold. Why, he actually discovered in passing just before the storm that somebody had dug up a sugar berry bush from the corner of your old rail fence.” “And we really must get back,” insisted Mrs. Ambler, “we haven't even fixed the servants' Christmas, and Betty has to fill the stockings for the children in the quarters.” “Then if you will go, go you shall,” cried the Major, as heartily as he had pressed his invitation. “You shall get back, ma'am, if I have to go before you with a shovel and clear the snow away. So just a bit more of this roast pig, just a bit, Governor. My dear Miss Lydia, I beg you to try that spiced beef--and you, Mr. Bill?--Cupid, Mr. Bill will have a piece of roast pig.” By the time the Tokay was opened, the Major had grown very jolly, and he began to exchange jokes with the Governor and the rector. Mr. Bill and the doctor, neither of whom could have told a story for his life, listened with a kind of heavy gravity; and the young men, as they rattled off a college tale or two, kept their eyes on Betty and Virginia.