In common with most city-bred ladies, accustomed to treading the brightly-lighted city streets with indifference, she looked upon the darkness and silence of the country with a sort of terror, and was making swift strides, not pausing even to get the glimpse of "home" which shone out broadly across the snow from all the front windows of the house on Curve Hill.
It looked very home-like, but her only home was that plain, little upper room, at the academy, and thither she must go with all speed. Underneath the freshly-falling snow lay a treacherous block of ice, and as the hurrying feet touched it, they slipped from their owner's control, and she was lying a limp heap at the foot of Curve Hill.
No use to try to rise and hasten on. A very slight effort in that direction told her that one ankle was useless. What was to be done? She looked up and down the street; not a person was to be seen in either direction. Would it be of any use to call through this rising wind for assistance? How plainly she could see the forms flitting about that bright room! yet they might as well be miles away, so far as her power to reach them was concerned. She made a second effort to rise, and fell back with a groan; it was best not to attempt that again, or she should faint, and certainly she had need of her senses now. If only one of those queer-looking wood-sleighs, over which she had laughed only this afternoon, would come along and pick her up, how grateful she would be! Somebody else was coming to pick her up.
"What have we here?" said a brisk voice. "Fallen humanity? plenty of that to be found. What is the immediate cause?" Then in a lower tone: "I believe it is a woman!" By this time he had reached her side, a young man, prepared to make merry over the fallen fortunes of some child; so he had evidently at first supposed.
"I beg pardon, ma'am," he said, and even at that moment he waited to lift his hat, "did you fall? Are you injured? How can I best help you?"
Claire Benedict of old had one peculiarity which had often vexed her more nervous young sister: under embarrassing or trying circumstances of any sort, where the average young woman would be likely to cry, she was nearly certain to laugh. It was just what she did at this moment.
"I think I have sprained my ankle," she said between her laughs; "at least, it will not allow me to move without growing faint, so I am keeping still; I thought I needed my senses just now. If you can think of any way of securing a wagon of some sort in which I can ride to the academy, it will help me materially."
"To the academy! Why, that is a mile away! You must take a shorter ride than that for the first one. You can not be very heavy, I should say. Allow me." And before she understood what he was planning sufficiently to attempt a protest, he had stooped and unceremoniously picked her up, and was taking swift strides across the snow-covered lawn to the side piazza of the Ansted house. The gate leading to the carriage-drive was thrown open, so there had been no obstacle in his way.
It was ridiculous to laugh under such circumstances, but this was just what Claire did, while her porter threw open the door, strode through the wide hall, and dropped her among the cushions of a luxurious couch, in one of the bright rooms.
"Here is a maimed lady," he said. "Mamma, Alice, where are some of you?"