He got so far, he seized her hands, and then he stopped, not knowing why.  There were many more ejaculations and welcomes and what not on the end of his tongue.  It was not that she had become a lady—­a lady of a type he had never before seen.  He meant to say that, too, in his own way, but he couldn’t.  And that transformation would have bothered Lem but little.  What was the change, then?  Why was he in awe of her—­he, Lem Hallowell, who had never been in awe of any one?  He shook his head, as though openly confessing his inability to answer that question.  He wanted to ask others, but they would not come.

“Lem,” she said, “I am so glad you are here.”

“Climb right in, Cynthy.  I’ll get the trunk.”  There it lay, the little rawhide one before him on the boards, and he picked it up in his bare hands as though it had been a paper parcel.  It was a peculiarity of the stage driver that he never wore gloves, even in winter, so remarkable was the circulation of his blood.  After the trunk he deposited, apparently with equal ease, various barrels and boxes, and then he jumped in beside Cynthia, and they drove down familiar Brampton Street, as wide as a wide river; past the meeting-house with the terraced steeple; past the postoffice,—­Cousin Ephraim’s postoffice,—­where Lem gave her a questioning look—­but she shook her head, and he did not wait for the distribution of the last mail that day; past the great mansion of Isaac D. Worthington, where the iron mastiffs on the lawn were up to their muzzles in snow.  After that they took the turn to the right, which was the road to Coniston.

Well-remembered road, and in winter or summer, Cynthia knew every tree and farmhouse beside it.  Now it consisted of two deep grooves in the deep snow; that was all, save for a curving turnout here and there for team to pass team.  Well-remembered scene!  How often had Cynthia looked upon it in happier days!  Such a crust was on the snow as would bear a heavy man; and the pasture hillocks were like glazed cakes in the window of a baker’s shop.  Never had the western sky looked so yellow through the black columns of the pine trunks.  A lonely, beautiful road it was that evening.

For a long time the silence of the great hills was broken only by the sweet jingle of the bells on the shaft.  Many a day, winter and summer, Lem had gone that road alone, whistling, and never before heeding that silence.  Now it seemed to symbolize a great sorrow:  to be in subtle harmony with that of the girl at his side.  What that sorrow was he could not guess.  The good man yearned to comfort her, and yet he felt his comfort too humble to be noticed by such sorrow.  He longed to speak, but for the first time in his life feared the sound of his own voice.  Cynthia had not spoken since she left the station, had not looked at him, had not asked for the friends and neighbors whom she had loved so well—­had not asked for Jethro!  Was there any sorrow on earth to be felt like that?  And was there one to feel it?