For my Uncle Corny went to bed that night, in a very bad worry of mind, and fitter to grumble at the Lord than to say his prayers. Not from anxiety about his nephew, who was sure to turn up somehow; but because he had frightful misgivings about his glass, and his trees, and his premises at large. The roof of his long vinery was buckled in already, when he went with a lantern to look at it; and many of his favourite apple-trees, which he loved to go and gaze at on a Sunday, were bowed with the wind and the snow, and hanging in draggles, like so much mistletoe. He never swore much at the weather; because it seemed like swearing at heaven, and he had found it grow worse under that sort of treatment. But our Tabby Tapscott (who feared to go home, and tried to sleep on two chairs in the kitchen) declared that he used some expressions that night, which were quite enough to account for anything. In the morning, however, there was no fault to find with him, as soon as he had done a good hour’s work in the deep snow and the nipping wind, and improved his circulation by convincing everybody that he was still as young as he ever was. He relieved the laden trees, wherever it was wise to do so, and with the back of a hay-rake fetched the white incumbrance from the glass, and stamped his feet and shook his coat, and had a path swept here and there, and told himself and Selsey Bill, that a good old-fashioned winter was the thing to send all prices up. But when he sat down to breakfast, he kept looking at the door, as if for me; and at last he said to Mrs. Tapscott, who was shaking in her apron—“Why, where’s that lazy Kit again? Is he frozen to his pillow? Go and give him a good rattle up. He deserves cold victuals, and he shall have nothing else.” “Her bain’t coom home,” replied Tabby, looking as crossly as she dared at him. “Much you care for the poor boy, measter. I rackon the znow be his winding-shate. No more coortin’ for he, this zide of kingdom coom, I’d lay a penny.” “Kit not come home! Kit out all night, and you let me go on with my trees and roofs! But you know where he is, or you would not take it so, and you snoring away by the kitchen fire. None of your secrets about him. Where is Kit?” “The Lord A’mighty know’th where a’ be.” Poor Tabby began to whine and cry. “The zecret be with Him, not me. A’ wor to coom home, but her never didn’t. A vaine job for e’e to zake for ’un. Vaind un dade as a stone, I reckon.” “Nonsense! Kit can take care of himself. He is the strongest young fellow for miles and miles, and accustomed to all sorts of weather. What’s a bit of snow to a young man like Kit? You women always make the worst of everything.” “But her bain’t coom home;” answered Tabby with all reason. “Her would ’a coom home, if so be her worn’t drowned in the znow, I tull ’e, sir. No more coortin’ for Measter Kit, in this laife. A’ may do what a’ wool, in kingdom coom.”