All this while, Mr. Parlin, doing business in the city, and his wife, sewing by her cheerful fire, had neither of them felt any anxiety about their children. Why should they? They supposed them safe at school.

At one o’clock, as the storm was still increasing, Mr. Parlin went after them with a horse and sleigh. Susy and Prudy muffled themselves and danced down stairs in high glee, for such a fearful storm as this was an event in their lives. But where was Dotty? Their father came out of the primary room with a pale face, and Miss Parker followed him, repeating,—

“I am sure, Mr. Parlin, there is nothing to fear. She only went to Mrs. Penny’s with Sarah—not an eighth of a mile. You turn down —— street, and it is the first house you see on the right,—brown, with green blinds.”

“Yes, yes, I understand, Miss Parker; but I wonder you dared let such little ones go out of the yard. I trust it is all right; but if I were in your place, I would not allow it again.”

Mr. Parlin told Susy and Prudy to wait while he went to Mrs. Penny’s with the sleigh. Of course, when he got there, the Pennys knew nothing about the children, and were in a great fright on being informed that, more than an hour ago, Tate had started for home with Dotty.

Mrs. Penny was a widow; she had no one to send in search of her missing child but her son Ben, a lad of fourteen, who was just recovering from a slow fever.

“I must go, mother,” pleaded Ben; “I can’t stand it to sit here and do nothing.”

His mother helped him draw on his overcoat, and then, with trembling fingers, she wound a shawl about his hectic cheeks.

“You go down by the Back Cove, and I’ll drive to Munjoy,” said Mr. Parlin, hoarsely.

But first he had to go to the school-house for Susy and Prudy. He would have let them wait, but feared their mother would be anxious. He hurried them home with scarcely a word. They ran into the house very merrily, just as he had meant they should do; and when their mother cried out,—

“Ah, my little snow-images, where’s Dotty?” they said, gayly,—

“O, she’s gone to Tate Penny’s; father went for her; it’s something about the nose-bleed.”

Mrs. Parlin did not think twice of the matter. She had as much as she could do to shake the children’s clothes, and listen to their lively prattle about the snow-storm.

“Was there ever anything like it when you were a little girl?” said one. “And can there be a flood of snow? The rainbow isn’t any sign, is it, only about the rain?” said another.

“It appears to me,” remarked Mrs. Parlin, looking at the clock, “your papa is gone a long while. I thought Mrs. Penny lived very near?”

“So she does,” answered Prudy. “I’m afraid Tate is sick.”

Mrs. Parlin feared so too, and that her husband was needed to go for the doctor. It must be dreadful, she thought, for people to be sick in such a terrible storm. It had not occurred to her, as yet, to be alarmed about her child.

The storm was all this time increasing, till Mr. Parlin could see neither the road nor his horse, and the poor animal scarcely knew whether he was wading through clouds or snow-drifts.

“It certainly is not strange the children should lose their way,” thought Mr. Parlin. “I must have a care, or I shall lose mine, too.”

As his horse was only a hinderance, he took him back to the stable, and pursued his way on foot.

Now we will return to the little ones, and see what they were doing.

Dotty had said she was going to give up; still she struggled on, and Tate followed, crying out,—

“If we die you’ll say ’twas me did it; but who hit my nose?”

“O, Tate, I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk!”

“And who tried to go back to the school-house, Dotty Dimple, but you wouldn’t? And then we’d have been alive now!”

Dotty did not listen. She was thinking about the whooping-cough. Had she been saved from it in her babyhood, and lived six years, to meet with such a doom at last?

“My mamma said I had the whooping-cough so my face was purple. She thought I’d die in it; but I never. I lived over it, and the purple went off, and I’ve been alive ever since till to-day. O, my mamma didn’t think this morning how I was going to die before she’d see me again! She’d have kissed me a million times for good by; she’d have hugged me like everything! And then, after she’d cried her eyes out, she’d have said, ‘Dotty, take off your water proof, dear; I don’t want my little girl to go to school and never come home any more.’

“My father didn’t know what he’s doing, when he said I wasn’t tender! He thought I’d cough to death when I was little; he didn’t know this was a great deal worse’n the whooping-cough.”

Unhappy Dotty! Unhappy Tate! Two forlorn little creatures, fighting against a terrible fate!

“There don’t anybody care what ’comes of us,” said Dotty aloud, at last. “There isn’t anybody anywhere, Tate Penny, and nothing in this world but just snow!”

“O, dear,” echoed Tate, hugging herself. “I never was so cold but just once, and then my mother rolled me in a shawl.”

“You never’ll see your mother again,” said Dotty, in a hard tone, as if she took a grim pleasure in it; “never again; nor your house, nor your brother Ben, nor your little sister Tid. O, no! Just ’cause your nose bleeds so easy.”

“You stop saying that, Dotty Dimple; it’s bad enough—”

“O, Tate, what you s’pose I care about your nose? Miss Parker was the most to blame. Only think, little things like us, in the Primary’s Department! And to send us off to freeze!”

“She’ll feel dreadfully to-morrow,” said Tate; “don’t you believe they’ll put it in the papers?”

“I see something black,” exclaimed Dotty, “it’s a boy!”

At that moment Enoch Rosenberg approached, his face almost hidden under a cloth cap and red comforter.

Dotty sprang upon him.

“O, Solly,” cried she, “Solly Rosenbug! Is your name Solomon? I know your brother’s is!”

“No; my name’s Enoch,” replied the tall youth. “There’s only one Solomon in the family. Is this the little Parlin girl? What are you doing down this way?”

“O, Solly, Solly,” gasped Dotty; and then her strength failed, and she sank at his feet.

Of course Tate did not keep up another second after that, but fell across Dotty with a smothered groan.

“Here’s pretty doings!” thought Enoch; “two little young ones froze to death, and no house in sight! What were their folks thinking of, to let ’em out in such a trimmer of a storm? None o’ my business; much as I can do to take care o’ myself.”

But Enoch had a heart, after all, and could not leave the children to perish. He took Tate in his arms, she being the lighter of the two, and, as he could see, the fainter-hearted, and bade Dotty follow.

“I can’t,” said she, feebly.

“Nonsense! yes, you can, too.”

Dotty did not rise.

This would never do. Enoch held up Tate with his left hand, and with his right raised Dotty and shook her fiercely.

“Now come along,” said he; “if you don’t, I’ll call the dog.”

Dotty roused at once. Enoch’s words scattered the mist which was spreading over her thoughts, just as his mother’s scolding scattered the cobwebs from the rafters. Dotty found she was not dead yet, and, more than that, she was not going to allow herself to be killed by a dog that belonged to the Rosenberg family. So she clung to Enoch, and struggled on. She hardly knew whether it was hours or minutes, for time was in a blur, like everything else; but by and by they came to a house.

Enoch walked in without knocking. A woman, with a baby in her arms, cried out, “Mercy on us!” dropped the baby into a cradle, and, seizing Tate, began to pull off her hood and cloak.

“Fly round, Martha Jane,” said she to her daughter; “take the other one, and rub her hands as quick as you can! Susan Ellen, fetch the camphor-bottle! Where did these children come from?”

And without waiting for an answer, she ran for hot water and ginger.

“Drink this,” said she, coming back with a steaming bowl, whose contents she stirred with a spoon. She was almost obliged to open the little girls’ mouths before she could make them swallow.

“O, mother,” said Martha Jane, tearfully, “don’t you remember the lamb I told you about last year, at uncle Sam’s? how stiff its little jaws were? We had to hold them apart, just this way, to pour down pepper tea.”

Dotty looked up at the big girl in a green dress with a foolish smile.

“Am I a little sheep?” thought she, and closed her eyes.

She felt somebody tucking her into a warm bed. Her clothes had been removed, and there were nice blankets and shawls wrapped about her from head to foot. Then she fancied she was a baby with a purple face, dying of whooping-cough. That there was such a little girl as Tate Penny, she had quite forgotten. And Tate, who lay near her, had forgotten all about Dotty, and her own unfortunate nose. Mrs. Harris stood watching them with enough motherly kindness in her heart to have warmed them, body and soul.

“Bless the little dears, they look all right now, and will be asleep in two minutes; but I assure you, Martha Jane, I thought, when they first came in, it was a pretty hard chance; they wouldn’t have stood it out doors much longer.”

Enoch was waiting in the next room. He was glad to hear the children were doing so well; but he did not say so, and hurried away with a cross face, as if he had already wasted a great deal of time.

“Call at Mrs. Parlin’s without fail,” said Mrs. Harris, “or else at the school-house.”

“It’s a good two miles to either place,” grumbled Enoch; “and it isn’t exactly summer weather, you’d better believe.”

“O, but their folks must be told where they are!” persisted Mrs. Harris. “Do go—there’s a good boy! I’ve nobody but girls, and can’t send!”

Enoch slammed the door after him, leaving kind Mrs. Harris in a fever of uncertainty whether he meant to go to Mr. Parlin’s or not.