"I don't know that I'm called on to do it," Milford replied. "Give me that," he added, reaching for the bit of blazing paper which the hired man was about to put out. He lighted his pipe, threw the burning paper on the stove, and idly looked at the cinder waving in the draft. "As unsteadfast as Mitchell's love," he said. "What is?" the hired man inquired. "That thing, there? No, that's a woman's love. See, it's blowed away." "Such nonsense!" said the old woman. "How can you keep it up so long? I'd get sick to death of it. Woman's love, woman's love--I never was as tired of hearing of a thing. I hear it all summer, and now you're talkin' it. Conscience alive, how the wind blows! It makes me think of old Lewson, the cold made him shiver so. I've knowed him to sit up at night with his fire out and his teeth chatterin', waitin' for the spirits to come. One night I asked him who he expected, and he said his wife, and I told him she was a fool to come out such a night, and he flung his spirit book at me, and the Dutch girl kindled the fire with it the next mornin'. Poor old feller! I passed his grave the other day, all heaped up with snow; and it made me shake so to think I'd be lyin' there sometime, with the snow fallin' an' the cows mooin' down the road. But I'm not gone yet, Bill. Do you understand that? I say I'm not gone yet, and many a one of 'em 'll be hauled off before I do go. Yes, you bet! I'll outlive all of you; the last one of you." "I hope so, Mrs. Stuvic," said Milford. "You do? Thank you for the compliment." "But you've got to go sometime," Mitchell spoke up; and she frowned upon him.