"That will be quite uncomfortable for you," he said decidedly, as if it were not to be thought of. Dawn wondered why it was that people were always taking her affairs out of her hands so confidently, without asking her leave. But she was no longer the child she had been at home or school. She was feeling the strength of independence. She sat up with dignity.
"Oh, I shall enjoy it," she answered, sparkling at the thought.
"My cutter is here, and you'd better go with me," said Silas. "I'll speak to Dan about it and make it all right, so he won't expect you."
"Oh, please don't do that!" cried Dawn anxiously. (Why was it he reminded her so much of Harrington Winthrop?) "I promised Daniel and the children. I wouldn't disappoint them for anything. Thank you just the same."
Some one else came up then, and Silas turned away, but Dawn watched him uneasily. From the look on his face, one would have thought she had accepted his attention with delight. He did not act like a man who had received a rebuff.
Later, when Dan drove his horses with a flourish to the old horse-block in front of the house, Silas was waiting for him.
"You needn't wait for Miss Montgomery, Dan," said the selectman in a patronizing tone. "She's going with me."
"She's not any such a thing," growled Dan. "She promised us she'd go in our team."
"Yes, she was afraid you'd be disappointed, but I told her I'd make it right with you," said Silas, in a soothing tone. "Hurry, now, and load up and drive out of the way. Don't you see the other folks are waiting? You wouldn't stand in the way of a lady's comfort, would you, especially when she doesn't want to go with you?"
Dan glared at his adversary in speechless wrath for an instant, while the girls and boys were climbing in, then gave a cut to his horses with the whip and drove the long sleigh with its merry load out into the white mist of the moonlit road and round a curve to the fence, where he flung the reins to another boy, telling him to wait and keep quiet. Then he stole back around the house and stood in the shadow of a great wood-pile, near enough to hear all that went on, but not to be seen.