This became more apparent when, dressed for the outdoors, Tory hesitated.
Was the old truism in this case a stern reality? Was discretion not the better part of valor?
Should she follow the dog to the spot where some one may have been overcome by the storm? Once there, what possible aid had she the power to render? Yet to fail to do what she could was less possible. Not only to her principles as a Girl Scout would she be unfaithful, but she had entertained herself during the past night by considering her Patrol as Knights of a Round Table.
“‘All kinds of service with a noble ease, that graced the lowliest act in doing it,’” Tory quoted to herself, as she stepped out of the front door, the dog close beside her.
She stopped and caught her breath.
The air was tingling with the sharp cold, the sky above the branches of the snow-laden trees a steel blue. These were not the important facts. Save for the footprints of the dog, there was no track anywhere of man or beast; the path had completely vanished. To step out into the unpacked snow would mean that she too would be floundering about half-way up to her waist and soon in need of help instead of being able to offer it.
Nevertheless, through the intense stillness of the early winter morning Tory believed she did hear some one approaching.
The Emperor must have received the same impression. He appeared to sympathize and understand her uncertainty once she had stepped outdoors to follow his behest. Now he bounded from her.
Not long after Tory’s eyes filled with tears of surprise and relief, which promptly froze into crystals.
The newcomer, making his way slowly and painstakingly toward the House in the Woods, was her uncle, Mr. Richard Fenton.