“I knew you were Mr. Darley, but I don't see how you knew that I was Miss Charteris,” said that young lady, looking surprised, and quite forgetting her ankle.
“I have the pleasure of knowing your sister, and I recognized the likeness,” answered Darley, truthfully. “Now, will you allow me? Or I am afraid I shall have to take the law into my own hands.”
“I am not the law,” retorted Miss Charteris, attempting to proceed.
“The very reason that I should become the law,” answered Darley, laughing.
“I think I can hop,” said the girl, desperately. She did so for a few yards, and then came to a last halt. Hopping through deep snow proved rather heavy exercise.
“I am afraid you will have to carry me,” she said in a tone of surrender.
Darley picked her up. She was no weight, this little gray thing, and Darley was an athletic young man. Despite the snow, it did not take him long to reach the farm-house.
The farmer's wife was a kind soul, and knew Miss Charteris. She also knew a sprain, she said, when she saw one; and Miss Charteris' ankle was sprained. So, while the injured member was being attended to by the deft hand of the farmer's wife, Darley posted off to the town for Miss Charteris' aunt's sleigh, the farmer being absent with his own.
Darley secured the sleigh, drove back to the farm-house, and his charge, her ankle warmly and carefully wrapped up, was placed in the cutter and driven home. The family doctor had already arrived, and Darley took his leave.
“May I call and see how you are get-ing on?” he ventured as he said good-by.