“I’d be afraid you’d never get to Brandon tonight, honey.”  Mrs. Corbett held her close, determining in her own mind that she would lock her in the pantry if there was no other way of detaining her.  “Listen to the wind—­sure it’s layin’ in for a blizzard.  I knew that all day.  The roads will be drifted so high you’d never get there, even with the big pacer.  Stay here tonight just to oblige me, and you can go on in the morning if it’s fit.”

Meanwhile John Corbett had been warning Rance Belmont that the weather was unfit for anyone to be abroad, and the fact that George Sims, the horse trader from Millford, and Dan Lonsbury, had put in for the night, made a splendid argument in favor of his doing the same.  Rance Belmont had no desire to face a blizzard unnecessarily, particularly at night, and the storm was growing thicker every minute.  So after consulting with Evelyn, who had yielded to Mrs. Corbett’s many entreaties, he agreed to remain where he was for the night.  Evelyn went at once to the small room over the kitchen, which Mrs. Corbett kept for special guests, and as she busied herself about the kitchen Mrs. Corbett could hear her pacing up and down in her excitement.

Mrs. Corbett hastily baked biscuits and “buttermilk bread” to feed her large family, who, according to the state of the weather and the subsequent state of the roads, might be with her for several days, and while her hands were busy, her brain was busier still, and being a praying woman, Maggie Corbett was looking for help in the direction from which help comes.

The roaring of the storm as it swept past the house, incessantly mourning in the mud chimney and sifting the snow against the frosted windows, brought comfort to her anxious heart, for it reminded her that dominion and majesty and power belong to the God whom she served.

When she put the two pans of biscuits in the oven she looked through the open door into the “Room,” where her unusual number of guests were lounging about variously engaged.

Rance Belmont smoked cigarettes constantly and shuffled the cards as if to read his fate therein.  He would dearly have loved a game with some one, for he had the soul of a gambler, but Mrs. Corbett’s decree against card-playing was well known.

Dan Lonsbury, close beside the table lamp, read a week-old copy of the Brandon Times.  George Sims, the horse-dealer, by the light of his own lantern, close beside him on the bench, pared his corns with minute attention to detail.

Under the wall lamp, which was fastened to the window frame, Da Corbett, in his cretonne-covered barrel-chair of home manufacture, read the War Cry, while Peter Rockett, on his favorite seat, the wood-box, played one of the Army tunes on his long-suffering Jew’s-harp.

“They can’t get away as long as the storm lasts, anyway,” Mrs. Corbett was thinking, thankful even for this temporary respite, “but they’ll go in the mornin’ if the storm goes down, and I can’t stop them—­vain is the help of man.”