"Mr. Bond!" thrilled a voice.
"Whoa!" called the parson excitedly. He was throwing back the robe to leap from the sleigh when the figure reached him. "Oh!" said he; "Isabel!"
She was breathing hard with excitement and the determination grown up in her mind during that last half hour of her exile in the kitchen.
"Parson,"—forgetting a more formal address, and laying her hand on his knee,—"I've got to say it! Won't you please forgive me? Won't you, please? I can't explain it"—
"Bless your heart, child!" answered the parson cordially; "you needn't try to. I guess I made you nervous."
"Yes," agreed Isabel, with a sigh of relief, "I guess you did." And the parson drove away.
Isabel ran, light of heart and foot, back into the warm sitting-room, where aunt Mary Ellen was standing just where he had left her. She had her glasses off, and she looked at Isabel with a smile so vivid that the girl caught her breath, and wondered within herself how aunt Mary Ellen had looked when she was young.
"Isabel," said she, "you come here and give me a corner of your apron to wipe my glasses. I guess it's drier 'n my handkerchief."