There was no struggling now--no hand-to-hand wrestling with storm-demons. The sun laughed from a sky as blue and deep as her own sky of Maine, and the girl laughed with him as she walked along, the powdery snow flying in a cloud from her snow-shoes at every step. Such a sight had never been seen in Mentor village before. The people came running to their upper windows--their lower ones were for the most part buried in snow--and stared with all their eyes at the strange apparition. In the street, life was beginning to stir. People had found, somewhat to their own surprise, that they were alive and well after the blizzard; and knots of men were clustered here and there, discussing the storm, while some were already at work tunnelling through the drifts. Mr. Perkins, the butcher, had just got his door open, and great was his amazement when Maine hailed him from the top of a great drift, and demanded a quarter of mutton with some soup meat. [Illustration: "MAINE HAILED HIM FROM THE TOP OF A GREAT DRIFT."] "Yes, miss!" he stammered, open-mouthed with astonishment. "I--I've got the meat; but I wasn't--my team isn't out this morning. I don't know about sending it." "I have a 'team' here!" said Maine, quietly, pulling her sled alongside. "Give me the mutton, Mr. Perkins; you may charge it to Miss Wayland, please, and I will take it home." The butter-man and the grocer were visited in the same way, and Maine, rather embarrassed by the concentrated observation of the whole village, turned to pull her laden sled back, when suddenly a window was thrown open, and a voice exclaimed: "Young woman! I will give you ten dollars for the use of those snow-shoes for an hour!" Maine looked up in amazement, and laughed merrily when she saw the well-known countenance of the village doctor. "What! You, my dear young lady?" cried the good man. "This is 'Maine to the Rescue,' indeed! I might have known it was you. But I repeat my offer. Make it anything you please, only let me have the snow-shoes. I cannot get a horse out, and have two patients dangerously ill. What is your price for the magic shoes?" "My price, doctor?" repeated Maine, looking up with dancing eyes. "My price is--one cent. For the Missionary Fund! The snow-shoes are yours, and I will get home somehow with my sled and the mutton." So she did, and Doctor Fowler made his calls with the snow-shoes, and saved a life, and brought cheer and comfort to many. But it was ten dollars, and not one cent, which he gave to the Missionary Fund. THE SCARLET LEAVES "The Committee will please come to order!" said Maine. "What's up?" asked Massachusetts, pausing in her occupation of peeling chestnuts. "Why, you know well enough, Massachusetts. Here it is Wednesday, and we don't know yet what we are going to do on Friday evening. We must do something, or go shamed to our graves. Never a senior class has missed its Frivolous Friday, since the school began." "Absolutely no hope of the play?"