"
"Oh, well, if you will risk your life and ours too; but Carrie
must stay with me."
"Will YOU trust me, Miss Carrie, and help me out of this scrape?"
Carrie was recovering from her panic, and replied, "I have given
you my promise."
He was out of the sleigh instantly, and the thin ice broke with
him also. "I must carry you a short distance," he said. "I cannot
allow you to get your feet wet. Put one arm around my neck, so;
now please obey as you promised."
She did so without a word, and he bore her beyond the water,
inwardly exulting and blessing that thin ice. His decision was
coming with the passing seconds; indeed, it had come. Returning to
the sleigh he drove slowly forward, his horse making a terrible
crunching and splashing, Lottie meanwhile keeping up a staccato
accompaniment of little shrieks.
"Ah, my charming creature," he thought, "with you it was only,
'What will become of ME?' I might not have found out until it was
too late the relative importance of 'me' in the universe had we
not struck this bad crossing; and one comes to plenty of bad
places to cross in a lifetime.
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