I plodded back with my empty basket. I had only one clear thought,—that I wouldn't have any more tramping across the golf links in the snow. I was too tired really to care that with the regular winter boarders gone and eight weeks still until Lent, we'd hardly be able to keep going another fortnight. I wanted to get back to my room and go to bed and forget.
But as I came near the house I saw Mr. Pierce come out on the front piazza and switch on the lights. He stood there looking out into the snow, and the next minute I saw why. Coming up the hill and across the lawn was a shadowy line of people, black against the white. They were not speaking, and they moved without noise over the snow. I thought for a minute that my brain had gone wrong; then the first figure came into the light, and it was the bishop. He stood at the front of the steps and looked up at Mr. Pierce.
"I dare say," he said, trying to look easy, "that this is sooner than you expected us!"
Mr. Pierce looked down at the crowd. Then he smiled, a growing smile that ended in a grin.
"On the contrary," he said, "I've been expecting you for an hour or more."
The procession began to move gloomily up the steps. All of them carried hand luggage, and they looked tired and sheepish Miss Cobb stopped in front of Mr. Pierce.
"Do you mean to say," she demanded furiously, "that you knew the railroad was blocked with snow, and yet you let us go!"
"On the contrary, Miss Cobb," he said politely, "I remember distinctly regretting that you insisted on going. Besides, there was the Sherman House."
Senator Briggs {sic} stopped in front of him. "Probably you also knew that THAT was full, including the stables, with people from the stalled trains," he asserted furiously.
Two by two they went in and through the hall, stamping the snow off, and up to their old rooms again, leaving Slocum, the clerk, staring at them as if he couldn't believe his eyes.