my breast like a dead bird's...." CHAPTER XVII With the last days of November winter descended with real earnest on the Green Glen. For thirty-six hours snow fell, blotting out the paths, piling great drifts in the hollows, making the high road almost level with the tops of the hedges. The carts from the shops, the butcher, the baker, the grocer, had to remain in the town, the postman could not come near, Mr. Sharp stayed snugly in his Manse, and Dreams was entirely cut off from the rest of the world. When the frost came, hardening the snow, Ann got out her toboggan and spent glorious hours flying down the hillside and toilful ones dragging the toboggan up again. Glowing with health and self-satisfaction, she came in in the frosty twilight, to drink tea and upbraid her mother for electing to remain by the fire. "How can you frowst by the fire, Mother, when you might be out looking at the most glorious sunset and drinking in great draughts of air that is like champagne? What? Cold? Not a bit, once you are out; indeed, I was almost too warm. The mistake about tobogganing is that the rush down is so short and the toil up so long. I must demand, like the Irishman, that all roads be either level or downhill. What a delicious muffin this is! May I have the jam?" Ann rose to get herself another cup of tea, and looked out of the window on the way. "It's bitter hard to-night--you know the frost is very severe when the snow creaks. 'Hech, sirs, it's winter fairly.' Do come and look out, Mother. It's glorious being in Dreams in snow--like living in the heart of a crystal." Mrs. Douglas shivered as she looked out at the waste of snow. "Draw the curtains, Ann, and shut it out. I never did like snow: cold, unfriendly stuff, making everything uncomfortable, blocking roads and killing sheep and delaying trains; and when it goes away, burst pipes and dripping misery. But you children always loved it. At Kirkcaple, when it came, you were out before breakfast snowballing the milkman." Ann finished her tea and lay back in her chair regarding her mother, who was finishing her "reading" for the day, taking sips of tea and reading _Golden Grain_ at the same time. "Mother," said Ann, "did you ever give yourself good times? You began your married life without a honeymoon, and I'm afraid you continued on the same principle. I don't seem to remember that you ever got rid of us all and had a real holiday alone with Father." Mrs. Douglas finished what she was reading and laid the little book on the pile before she answered her daughter. Then she took off her spectacles and took up her cup of tea, and said: