"Well, yes," she said quietly, "of course we've got to go." He looked at her breathlessly. That possibility had not crossed his mind. "You!" he cried. "You couldn't go, dear. Twelve miles out in Caledonia, cold as it is to-night. You--" In spite of her sympathy, she laughed at him then. "Did you honestly think I wouldn't?" she asked, in a kind of wonder. "Well, I'm sure--" began her mother. But the two bridesmaids manifestly heard the Word again, for they talked with her both at once. "Not with Jacob, though," Chris was saying decisively. "You help father and the boys get out our cutter, Allen." Allen strode past the mother and lifted his wife's face in his hands. "Do you mean it?" he demanded. "Will you go--in the cold--all that long way--" "You Silly!" she answered, and drew away from him and set the little brown hat on her head. The road lay white before them, twelve miles of snow and stars to Jacob's cottage among the Caledonia hills. Jacob had gone on--from the crest of the rise by the Corner church they saw him and heard the faint signalling of his bells. It was a place, that rise by the Corner church on the edge of the village, where two others in such case might have drawn rein to look at Everything, stretching before, rhythmic crest and shallow, and all silent and waiting. But not these two, incurious as the gods, naïve as the first lovers. Only, though of this they were unconscious, they saw things a little differently that night. "Look!" said the girl, with a sign to the lowlands, expressive with lights. "So many folks's houses--homes, all started. I s'pose it was just as big a thing for them. But _theirs_ don't seem like anything, side of ours!" "That's so, too," assented Allen. "And theirs _ain't_ anything side of ours!" he maintained stoutly. "No, sir," she agreed, laughing. Then she grew suddenly grave, and fell silent for a little, her eyes here and there on the valley lights, while Allen calculated aloud the time of the arrival at Jacob's house. "Allen!" she said at last. "Here!" he answered. "I'm here, you bet." "Just look at the lights," she said seriously, "and then _think_. There's Bess and Opie--not speakin' to each other. Over there's the Hubbelthwait farm that they've left for the hotel--an' Threat Hubbelthwait drunk all the time. An' Howells's, poor and can't pay, and don't care if they can't, and quarrels so folks can hear 'em from the road. And the Moneys', that's so ugly to the children, and her findin' fault, and him can't speak without an oath. That only leaves the Topladys' over there that's real, regular people. And she kind o' bosses him." "Well, now, that's so, ain't it?" said Allen, looking at the lights with a difference. Chris's right hand was warm in his great-coat pocket, and she suddenly snuggled close to him, her chin on his shoulder. "Oh, Allen," she said, "I'm _afraid_!" "What? On the Plank Road?" he wanted to know, missing her meaning.