He was looking down into a girl’s eyes, astonishingly lovely eyes, fringed with the longest, darkest, curling lashes he had ever seen. They seemed like great blue stars shining out through the depths of the pleasant room, twin stars that somehow were a part of Christmas, the tree and the lights and the prisms and the firelight flicker. He blinked the clinging snow from his own eyes and stared down at her for an instant, not yet breathing easily after his wrestle with the storm.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he gasped, with a winning smile that tried to take in the others in the room as well as this lovely girl. “I’m a pilgrim on my way and something has happened to my car. I couldn’t make out in the blinding snow what is the matter. Would you mind if I telephoned to a garage and asked for help? I’m on a very important errand, and my time is short.”

“Sure, you can use the telephone,” said Lance, “but I’m afraid it will be slow work getting anybody up from the village. They’re crazy-busy, I imagine. A man is coming out in about an hour, though, with a snowplow. Better sit down and warm up till he gets here.”

“Oh, I couldn’t wait an hour. I must get on as quickly as possible. It is most important.”

“All right. I’ll get on my togs and go out and have a look.”

“Oh, I couldn’t think of taking you out into the storm,” protested Alan. “I’m so sorry to intrude. If you’ll just let me telephone.”

“Sure, go ahead! There’s the phone. Call Gates’s Garage. Number’s 92. But I’ll get my high boots on and be ready.”

So Alan Monteith went to the telephone, and the family in the shadows of the room furtively watched his broad shoulders and trim, shapely head, silhouetted against the window. They liked his courteous, troubled voice, and pitied him in this interval of their waiting for their own guests.

But the stranger turned from the phone with a real anxiety in his voice.

“He says they can’t spare anyone now. They have trouble enough. He says he doesn’t know how long it will be. And I must get on at once!” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to the family in the shadowy corners of the room, but Lance appeared, fastening his leather jacket.

“I guess we’ll need a light,” he said, taking down a long powerful-looking flashlight from the hall closet shelf. “Come on. We’ll see what’s the matter. If it’s fixable I’ll do my best.”

“You’re awfully good!” said Alan. “I can’t bear to be making all this trouble. If it were just for myself I shouldn’t allow it, but—”

They were outside now with the door slammed behind them, and suddenly Alan Monteith’s words were snatched from his lips and cast from him into the roaring seething storm.

Lance plunged across the drifted lawn, seeming to know by instinct where to set his foot for sure step, and they arrived wallowing and lurching at the side of the car.

Lance got in and turned on the ignition. Grimly he worked for several minutes, trying to start the car, listening to its helplessness with an experienced ear. Then suddenly he turned off the switch and shook his head at the unfortunate stranger.

“No good!” he shouted in his ear. “You’ve stripped the teeth from the gears in the differential. That’s easy to do with chains on in a snow like this.