"Meantime," said Zenobia, "it may serve to guide some wayfarer to a
shelter."
And, just as she said this, there came a knock at the house door.
"There is one of the world's wayfarers," said I. "Ay, ay, just so!"
quoth Silas Foster. "Our firelight will draw stragglers, just as a
candle draws dorbugs on a summer night."
Whether to enjoy a dramatic suspense, or that we were selfishly
contrasting our own comfort with the chill and dreary situation of
the unknown person at the threshold, or that some of us city folk
felt a little startled at the knock which came so unseasonably,
through night and storm, to the door of the lonely farmhouse,--so it
happened that nobody, for an instant or two, arose to answer the
summons. Pretty soon there came another knock. The first had been
moderately loud; the second was smitten so forcibly that the knuckles
of the applicant must have left their mark in the door panel.
"He knocks as if he had a right to come in," said Zenobia, laughing.
"And what are we thinking of?--It must be Mr. Hollingsworth!"
Hereupon I went to the door, unbolted, and flung it wide open. There,
sure enough, stood Hollingsworth, his shaggy greatcoat all covered
with snow, so that he looked quite as much like a polar bear as a
modern philanthropist.
"Sluggish hospitality this!" said he, in those deep tones of his,
which seemed to come out of a chest as capacious as a barrel. "It
would have served you right if I had lain down and spent the night on
the doorstep, just for the sake of putting you to shame.
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