"While you have been preparing," she said, "so have I. There is something for me to do. My poor little craft that I have pottered at, keeping it alive and praying over it--my writing job, dear; I have offered for service. It has been accepted. It is my great secret--I've kept it for you as my last gift. When you come home, I'll tell you about it. While you are away you must think of me, busy--busy!" Then she bent and laid her pale fine face against the dark bowed head. "You are tired, dear, very, very tired. You must go to bed and rest--there is so much to do; so much." CHAPTER XXI In King's Forest many strange and awe-inspiring things had happened--but, as far as the Forest people knew, they were so localized that, like a cancer, they were eating in, deeper and deeper--to the death. The winter, with its continuous snow and cruel ice, had obliterated links; only certain centres glowed warm and alive, though even they ached with the pain of blows they had endured. The Mines. The Point. The Inn. The Little Yellow House. These throbbed and pulsated and to them, more often than of old--or so it seemed--the bell in the deserted chapel sent its haunting messages--messages rung out by unseen hands. "There's mostly lost winds this winter," poor Jan-an whimpered to Peneluna. "I have feelin's most all the time. I'm scared early and late, and that cold my bones jingle." Peneluna, softened and more silent than ever, comforted the girl, wrapped her in warmer clothes, and sent her scurrying across the frozen lake to the yellow house. "And don't come back till spring!" she commanded. "Spring?" Jan-an paused as she was strapping on an old pair of skates that once belonged to Philander Sniff. "Spring? Gawd!" It was a terrific winter. The still, intense kind that grips every snowstorm as a miser does his money, hiding it in secret places of the hills where the divine warmth of the sun cannot find it. The wind, early in November, set in the north! Occasionally the "ha'nt wind" troubled it; wailed a bit and caught the belfry bell, and then gave up and sobbed itself away. At the inn a vague something--was it old age or lost faith?--was trying to conquer Peter's philosophy and Aunt Polly's spiritual vision. The _Thing_, whatever it was, was having a tussle, but it made its marks. Peter sat oftener by the fire with Ginger edging close to the leg that the gander had once damaged and which, now, acted as an indicator for Peter's moods. When he did not want to talk his "leg ached." When his heart sank in despair his "leg ached." But Polly, a little thinner, a little more dim as to far-off visions, caught every mood of Peter's and sent it back upon him like a boomerang. She met his silent hours with such a flare of talk that Peter responded in self-defence. His black hours she clutched desperately and held them up for him to look at after she had charged them with memories of goodness and love.