legged critters to dance to! My, what's thet nonsense 'bout a cow? Why, I'm dreamin'. Whoa, there! Give her a tickler in the ribs, Billy. Hullo, look out! here's father come back from sea! Quick, Billy, chuck your crutch in the haymow. Kin't you stand straighter nor that? Unkink your leg, or father'll never take you out to be a pirate. Fancy a pirate on a crutch! It was my fault, father, fur fixin' up thet thar fandango, but mother's lambasted me a'ready, an' she wanted to shoot herself. But it don't matter to you, father; you're allus away a'most, an' Billy's crutch kin't get into your eye like it does into mother's. She was afeared to write to you 'bout it. Thet's on'y Billy in a fit-you see, Daisy kicked him, an' they couldn't fix his leg back proper-it don't fit, so he hes fits now an' then. He'll never be a pirate now. Drive the crutch deeper into the ice, Charley; steady there with the long pole. The iron pin goes into the crutch, Billy; don't get off the ashes, you'll slide under the sled. Now then, is the rope right? Jump on the sled, you girls an' fellers! Round with the pole! Whoop! Hooray! Ain't she scootin' jest! Let her rip! Pop! Snap! Geewiglets! The rope's give! Don't jump off, Billy, I tell you, you'll kill yourself! Stick in your toes an' don't yowl; we'll slacken at the dykes. Look at Ruth-she don't scream. Thunderation! We're goin' over into the river! Hold tight, you 'uns! Bang! Smash! We're on the ice-cakes! Is thet you thet's screamin', Billy? You ain't hurt, I tell you-don't yowl-you gooney-don't

But it was not Billy's voice that he heard screaming when the films of sleep really cleared away. The little cripple was nestling close up to him with the same panic-stricken air as when they rode that flying sled together. This time it was impossible to mistake their mother's voice for the wind-it rose clearly in hysterical vituperation.

"An' you orter be 'shamed o' yourself, I do declare, goin' home all alone in a sleigh with a young man-in the dead o' night, too!"

"There were more nor ourn on the road, and since Abner Preep was perlite enough

"Yes, an' you didn't think o' me on the road oncet, I bet! If young Preep wanted to do the perlite, he'd 'a' took me in his father's sleigh, not a wholesome young gal."

"But I was tar'd out with dancin' e'en a'most, and you on'y

"Don't you talk about my dancin', you blabbin' young slummix! Jest keep your eye on your Preeps, with their bow-legs an' their pigeon-toes."

"His legs is es straight es yourn, anyhow."

"P'raps you'll say thet I've got Injun blood next. Look at his round shoulders and his lanky hair-he's a Micmac, thet's what he is. He on'y wants a few baskets and butter-tubs to make him look nateral. Ugh! I kin smell spruce every time I think on him."

"It's you that hev hed too much spruce-beer, hey?"

"You sassy minx! Folks hev no right to bring eyesores into the world. I'd rather stab you than see you livin' with Abner Preep. It's a squaw he wants, thet's a fact, not a

wife!"

"I'd rather stab myself than go on livin' with you."

For a moment or two Matt listened in silent torture. The frequency of these episodes had made him resigned but not callous. Now Harriet's sobs were added to the horror of the altercation, and Matt fancied he heard a sound of scuffling. He jumped out of bed in an agony of alarm. He pulled on his trousers, caught up his coat, and slipped it on as he flew barefoot down the rough wooden stairs, with his woollen braces dangling behind him.

In the narrow, icy passage at the foot of the stairs, in the bleak light from the row of little crusted panes on either side of the door, he found his mother and sister, their rubber-cased shoes half buried in snow that had drifted in under the door. Mrs. Strang was fully dressed in her "frolickin'" costume, which at that period included a crinoline; she wore an astrakhan sacque, reaching to the knees, and a small poke bonnet, plentifully be-ribboned, blooming with artificial flowers within and without, and tied under the chin by broad, black watered bands. Round her neck was a fringed Afghan or home-knit muffler. She was a tall, dark, voluptuously built woman, with blazing black eyes and handsome features of a somewhat Gallic cast, for she came of old Huguenot stock. She stood now drawing on her mittens in terrible silence, her bosom heaving, her nostrils quivering. Harriet was nearer the door, flushed and panting and sobbing, a well-developed, auburn blonde of sixteen, her hair dishevelled, her bodice unhooked, a strange contrast to the other's primness.

"Where you goin'?" she said tremulously, as she barred her mother's way with her body.

"I'm goin' to drownd myself," answered her mother, carefully smoothing out her right mitten.

"Nonsense, mother," broke in Matt. snowin'."

"You kin't go out-it's

He brushed past the pair and placed himself with his back to the door, his heart beating painfully. His mother's mad threats

were familiar enough, yet they never ceased to terrify. Some day she might really do something desperate. Who knew?

"I'm goin' to drownd myself," repeated Mrs. Strang, carefully winding the muffler round her head.

She made a step towards the door, sweeping the limp Harriet roughly behind her.

"You kin't get out," Matt said firmly. "Why, you hevn't hed breakfast yet."

"What do I want o' breakfus? Your sister is breakfus 'nough fur me. Clear out o' the way."

"Don't you let her go, Matt," cried Harriet. instead."

"I'll quit "You!" exclaimed her mother, turning fiercely upon her, while her eyes spat fire. "You are young and wholesome-the world is afore you. You were not brought from a great town to be buried in a wilderness. Marry your Preeps an' your Micmacs, an' nurse your papooses. God has cursed me with froward children an' a cripple, an' a husband that goes gallivantin' onchristianly about the world with never a thought fur his 'mortal soul, an' the Lord has doomed me to worship Him in the wrong church. Mother yourselves; I throw up the

position."

"Is it my fault if father hesn't wrote you lately?" cried Harriet. "Is it my fault if there's no Baptist church to Cobequid village?" "Shut your mouth, you brazen hussy. You've drove your mother to her death. Stand out o' my way, Matthew; don't you disobey my dyin' reques'."

"I shan't," said the boy, squaring his shoulders firmly against the door. "Where kin you drownd yourself? The pond's froze an' the tide's out."

He could think of no other argument for the moment, and he had an incongruous vision of her sliding down to the river on her stomach, as the boys often did, down the steep reddish brown slopes of greasy mud, or sinking into a squash-hole like an errant horse.

"Why, there's on'y mud-flats," he added.

"I'll wait on the mud-flats fur the merciful tide." She fastened her bonnet-strings firmly.

"The river is full of ice," he urged.

"There will be room fur me," she answered. Then, with a sudden exclamation of dismay, "My God! you've got no shoes an' socks on! You'll ketch your death. Go upstairs d'reckly."

“No,” replied Matt, becoming conscious for the first time of a

cold wave creeping up his spinal marrow. then." And he sneezed vehemently.

"I'll ketch my death

"Put on your shoes an' socks d'reckly, you wretched boy. You know what a bother I hed with you last time."

He shook his head, conscious of a trump card.

"D'ye hear me ! Put on your shoes an' socks!"

"Take off your bonnet an' sacque," retorted Matt, clenching his fists.

"Put on your shoes an' socks!" repeated his mother.

"Take off your bonnet an' sacque, an' I'll put on my shoes an' socks."

They stood glaring defiance at each other, like a pair of duellists, their breaths rising in the frosty air like the smoke of pistolsthese two grotesque figures in the grey light of the bleak passage, the tall, fierce brunette, in her flowery bonnet and astrakhan sacque, and the small, shivering, sneezing boy, in his patched homespun coat, with his trailing braces and bare feet. They heard Harriet's teeth chatter in the silence.

"Go back to bed, you young varmint," said Matt, suddenly catching sight of Billy's white face and grey nightgown on the landing above. "You'll ketch your death."

There was a scurrying sound from above, a fleeting glimpse of other little nightgowned figures. Matt and his mother still confronted each other warily. And then the situation was broken up by the near approach of sleigh-bells. They stopped slowly, mingling their jangling with the creak of runners sliding over frosty snow; then the scrunch of heavy boots travelled across the clearing. Harriet flushed in modest alarm and fled upstairs. Mrs. Strang hastily retreated into the kitchen, and for one brief moment Matt breathed freely, till, hearing the click of the door-latch, he scented gunpowder. He dashed towards the door and pressed the thumb-latch, but it was fastened from within.

"Harriet!" he gasped, "the gun! the gun!"

He beat at the door, his imagination seeing through it. His loaded gun was resting on the wooden hooks fastened to the beam in the ceiling. He heard his mother mount a chair; he tried to break open the door, but could not. The chances of getting round by the back way flashed into his mind, only to be dismissed as quickly. There was no time-in breathless agony he waited the report of the gun. Crash! A strange unexpected sound smote his ears-he heard the thud of his mother's body striking the floor. She had stabbed herself, then, instead. Half mad with excitement and terror, he backed to the end of the

passage, took a running leap, and dashed with his mightiest momentum against the frail battened door. Off flew the catch, open flew the door with Matt in pursuit, and it was all the boy could do to avoid tumbling over his mother, who sat on the floor among the ruins of a chair, rubbing her shins, her bonnet slightly disarranged, and the gun, still loaded, demurely on its perch. What had happened was obvious; some of the little Strang mice, taking advantage of the cat's absence at the "muddin' frolic," had had a frolic on their own account, turning the chair into a sled, and binding up its speedily broken leg to deceive the maternal eye. It might have supported a sitter; under Mrs. Strang's feet it had collapsed ere her hand could grasp the gun.

"The pesky young varmints!" she exclaimed, full of this new grievance. "They might hev crippled me fur life. Always a-tearin' an' a-rampagin' an' a-ruinatin'. I kin't keep two sticks together. It's 'nough to make a body throw up the position."

The sound of the butt-end of a whip battering the front-door brought her to her feet with a bound. She began dusting herself hastily with her hand. "Kin't you

"Well, what're you gawkin' at?" she inquired. go an' unbar the door 'stead o' standin' there like a stuck pig?" Matt knew the symptoms of volcanic extinction; without further parley he ran to the door and took down the beechen bar. The visitor was "Ole Hey," who drove the local mail. The deacon came in, powdered as from his own grist-mill, and added the snow of his top-boots to the drift in the hall. There were leather-faced mittens on his hands, ear-laps on his cap, tied under the chin, a black muffler, hoary with frost from his breath, round his neck and mouth, and an outer coat of buffalo skin swathing his body down to his ankles, so that all that was visible of him was a little inner circle of red face with frosted eyebrows.

Mrs. Strang stood ready in the hall with a genial smile, and Matt, his heart grown lighter, returned to the kitchen, extracted the family foot-gear from under the stove, where it had been placed to thaw, and putting on his own still-sodden top-boots, he set about shaving whittlings and collecting kindlings to build the fire.

"Here we are again, hey!" cried the deacon, as heartily as his perpetual colossal quid would permit.

"Do tell-is it raelly you?" replied Mrs. Strang, with her pleasant smile.

"Yes-dooty is dooty, I allus thinks," he said, spitting into the snowdrift and flicking the snow over the tobacco-juice with his whip. "Whatever Deacon Hailey's hand finds to do he does fustrate-thet's a fact. It don't seem so long a while since you an'