Stefan, returning, was hailed at the door of the store by Sophy McGurn.
“Who’s the strange lady, Stefan?” she asked, most innocently.
“It’s a leddy vhat is expectin’ Hugo Ennis,” he answered.
“How queer!” said the girl, airily.
“Ay dunno,” answered the Swede. “Vhen Hugo he do a thing it ain’t nefer qveer, Ay tank.”
She turned away and Stefan stepped over to the depot and opened the door. Madge looked up, startled and again afraid. It was a relief to her to see Stefan’s friendly face. She had feared.... She didn’t know what she dreaded so much––perhaps a face repellent––a man who would look at her and in whose eyes she might discern insult or contempt.
The big Swede held an armful of heavy clothing.
“Ye can’t stay here, leddy,” he said. “You come ofer to my house since Ennis he no coming. Dese clothes is from my ole vomans. Mebbe ye look like––like de dooce in dem, but dat’s better as to freeze to death. An you vants a big breakfass so you goes vid me along. Hey dere! Joe! If Ennis he come you tell him come ofer to me, ye hear?”
A few minutes later Madge was trudging over the beaten snow by the side of her huge 81 companion. Her head was ensconced within the folds of a knitted shawl and over her thin cloak she wore an immense mackinaw of flaming hues whose skirts fell ’way below her knees. Over her boots, protestingly, she had drawn on an amazing pair of things made of heavy felt and ending in thick rubber feet, that were huge and unwieldy. Her hands were lost in great scarlet mitts. It is possible that at this time there was little feminine vanity left in her, yet she looked furtively to one side or the other, expecting scoffing glances. She felt sure that she looked like one of the fantastically-clad ragamuffins she had seen in the streets of New York, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. But the pair met but one or two Indian women who wore a garb that was none too æsthetic and who paid not the slightest attention to them, and a few men who may possibly have wondered but, with the instinctive civility of the North, never revealed their feelings.