He opened the door and took Hazel out, and led her into the house, without paying attention to anything but her. He took her up stairs to her own room, which he reached without going through the parlour where Mrs. Coles and Prim were. There he threw off his own snow-covered wrappings and then hers, that he might wrap her in his arms. He did not say what he had been feeling, but his manner of great gladness left Hazel to infer several things. And for a minute or two she was passive, shewing a pale, tired face. But then there swept over her such a sense of what she had, and of what she had escaped, that she could only lay her head down on his shoulder and be still; a shiver running over her as she remembered other souls adrift. 'Have you dined, in the snow, anywhere?' were Rollo's first coherent words. He was not given to talking sentiment. At the same time he was gathering Hazel's cold hands into his. 'I could not help it, Olaf!' Hazel broke out. 'I have been whirled about like a brown snow-flake.' 'And come home frozen.' He rang the bell for Phoebe, admonished her to be quick, and went back to the drawing room. When Hazel a few minutes later followed him, she found a servant bringing in supper. Primrose gave her a welcome kiss, but the other lady exclaimed,—eyes and senses on the alert,— 'Well, my dear! we have been uneasy about you.' 'Nobody ever need—about me,' said Wych Hazel. 'Unless there is something afoot more serious than a snow-storm.' 'It's a wild storm, isn't it?' 'Rather wild. You know, wild things are in my line, Mrs. Coles.' 'Not _now_, my dear, I hope. You have not come far in the snow, surely?' 'A little way seems far in such a drive, don't you know it, Prudentia?' remarked Rollo. And he took Wych Hazel out of the chair where she had placed herself and transferred her to a softer one. 'But Dane,' Mrs. Coles continued, with her own very peculiar mixture of raillery and insinuation,—'aren't you curious? or do you know all already?' 'I know all I want to know at present, thank you.' 'Does he always let you do just what you like, Hazel?' 'What I like?' Hazel repeated dreamily, lifting her eyes to the person in question: a swift, secret glance of allegiance which to- night came to him very often. Then she laughed and coloured a little. 'I hardly know,' she said. 'My "like" and his "let" are mixed up in inextricable confusion.' 'My dear!' said Mrs. Coles in mock reprehension, but smiling. 'What an admission!'