I looked at mother. Her face was blanched.
"But surely," she said, "this snow won't prevent the second diligence taking my daughter and myself to the Pomme d'Or at Creux? It is only a matter of an hour from here."
"You'll get no diligence either to-day or to-morrow, madame," was the answer she received.
The inn was reached—a funny little old-fashioned place—and we all descended ankle deep into the newly-fallen snow.
The landlord of the inn was waiting at the door, and invited us all in with true French courtesy. The cosy kitchen we entered had a lovely wood fire in the old-fashioned grate, and the dancing flames cast a cheery light upon the whitewashed walls. Oh, if only this had been the inn where father was staying! How gladly we would have rested our weary limbs and revelled in that glorious firelight. But it was not to be.
Mother's idea of another diligence was quite pooh-poohed.
"If it had been coming it would have been here before now," announced the landlord.
"Then we must walk it," returned my mother.
"Impossible," was the landlord's answer, and the portly old gentleman seconded him. "It is a matter of five miles from here."
"If I wish to see my husband alive I must walk it," said my mother in tremulous tones.