But at Hanover Lodge the fires glowed warm in open grates. The rich, solid, early Georgian furniture gave back reflections ripe and fruity, and the brass fenders shone in the flicker of the firelight. The Princess used sea-coal fires, to which, as a daughter of the land of pines, she added split and well-dried logs of resinous wood. These she would arrange with her own hands after the Bohemian fashion, pausing often to tell her guest tales of the times when, at the convent, she and Marie Louise had stolen from the Mother Superior's woodpile to keep from freezing. Patsy knitted diligently and before her a book lay open, but she read little. For the Princess, recalling old things and speaking copiously, looked often at her for sympathy and understanding. Miss Aline had gone to lie down with a book, so the two younger ladies were alone, and, as it seemed little likely that any visitors would venture so far from home that day they had settled themselves in the comfort of the Princess's boudoir, content with each other and content with the weather. Patsy had been teaching her companion such phrases as "a blatter o' sleet," an "on-ding o' snaw," and a "thresh o' rain." The Princess had a peculiar pleasure in learning such things and would often subtly misapply them in order to be corrected. She would tempt Patsy into further descriptions of the Twin Valleys, the Bay of the Abbey Burn, the bold deeds of the smugglers, and the fights of the Free Bands against the press-gangs. But always, by all roads and bypaths, she would bring her back to the Bothy of the Wild of Blairmore. Was she sure that there was the possibility of any decent comfort in such a place at such a season? Patsy shut her eyes, visualized the Wild as she had often seen it when she made a short cut from her Uncle Julian's to the sheltered valley of the Mays Water. More than once when the lads were in hiding after some offence against the revenue laws, which had brought troops into the district, Jean and she had been guided by Stair to the fastness, where they had been royally entertained, before being convoyed each to her home by the genial outlaws. She spoke of the wild white moor, cut with deep hags, the arms of the "scroggie" thorns blown away from the sea and clawing at the ground like spectral hands, black beneath, but every gnarled knuckle and digit outlined in purest white above. Sometimes the clean tablecloth of white which covered a little loch, was cut by a round black "well-eye" through which a spring oozed oilily, refusing to freeze. These must be known and avoided, for the ice was always thin thereabouts and a heedless night-wanderer might very easily vanish, never to be heard of more.