When I felt rested, and better, I asked him if we should start now. “Just as you please,” he said quietly. “There is no hurry. We are never hurried.” “If we have anything to do,” I said, “I had rather do it now I think.” “Very well,” said Father, “that is like you.” He rose and held out his hand again. I took it once more, and once more we went out to the threshold of our old home. This time I felt more confidence, but when the night air swept in, I could not help shrinking a little in spite of myself, and showing the agitation which overtook me. “Father!” I cried, “Father! _where_ are we going?” My father turned at this, and looked at me solemnly. His face seemed to shine and glow. He looked from what I felt was a great height. He said:-- “Are you really afraid, Mary, to go _any_where with me?” “No, no!” I protested in a passion of regret and trust, “my dear father! I would go any where in earth or Heaven with you!” “Then come,” he said softly. I clasped both hands, interlocking them through his arm, and we shut the door and went down the steps together and out into the winter dawn. II. It was neither dark nor day; and as we stepped into the village streets the confused light trembled about us delicately. The stars were still shining. Snow was on the ground; and I think it had freshly fallen in the night, for I noticed that the way before us lay quite white and untrodden. I looked back over my shoulders as my father closed the gate, which he did without noise. I meant to take a gaze at the old house, from which, with a thrill at the heart, I began to feel that I was parting under strange and solemn conditions. But when I glanced up the path which we had taken, my attention was directed altogether from the house, and from the slight sadness of the thought I had about it. The circumstance which arrested me was this. Neither my father’s foot nor mine had left any print upon the walk. From the front door to the street, the fine fair snow lay unbroken; it stirred, and rose in restless flakes like winged creatures under the gentle wind, flew a little way, and fell again, covering the surface of the long white path with a foam so light, it seemed as if thought itself could not have passed upon it without impression. I can hardly say why I did not call my father’s attention to this fact. As we walked down the road the dawn began to deepen. The stars paled slowly. The intense blue-black and purple of the night sky gave way to the warm grays that precede sunrise in our climate. I saw that the gold and the rose were coming. It promised to be a mild morning, warmer than for several days. The deadly chill was out of the air. The snow yielded on the outlines of the drifts, and relaxed as one looked at it, as snow does before melting, and the icicles had an air of expectation, as if they hastened to surrender to the annunciation of a warm and impatient winter’s day. “It is going to thaw,” I said aloud.