The hour was late for us in the country--almost eleven. We put away the cups and plates, and went through our nightly ceremony of locking up. First, we peeped out of the window at the thermometer, which registered two degrees above zero, and I set it down in my diary, for the temperature and the weather are important items to record when you are a farmer. Then we locked all the doors, giving Buster a pat as he lay on his old quilt in a corner of the kitchen. The kitchen lamp was out, and the room was lighted only by the moon, but the kettle was singing softly. Then we returned to the south room and banked the fires carefully, so that the fresh logs would catch in the morning, on top of the noble piles of ashes. Finally we blew out the lamps. Cold moonlight stole in across the floor from the glass door and windows, and met midway the warm red glow from the fires. The world was very still. The great room, so homelike, so friendly, so full of beautiful things and yet so simple, seemed sleeping. We tiptoed from it with a last loving glance and climbed the stairs. In our dressing-room, which was an extra chamber, an open fire burned, but in our chamber there was no heat. The shades were up and the moonlight showed the fairy frost patterns on the panes. We took a last look out across the silvery world before we retired, a last deep breath of the stinging cold air as the windows were opened, and jumped beneath the covering, with heavy blankets beneath us as well as above. "It is a very nice old world," said Stella sleepily. "Winter or summer, it is lovely. I think New York is but a dream--and I hope it won't be mine!" I heard her breathing steadily a few minutes later, and from far off somewhere in the outer world the mournful whistle of a screech owl came to my ears, the andante of the winter night. It seemed to intensify the freezing silence. I thought how at college I used to hear from my chamber the screech of trolley cars rounding a curve and biting my nerves. I thought of that lonely chamber, of all my life there, of Stella's life in the triple turmoil of New York. And I put out my hand and took hers into it, while she stirred in her sleep, her fingers unconsciously closing over mine. So we awoke in the morning, with the sunshine smiting the snow into diamonds and a chickadee piping for breakfast. Chapter XXIII SPRING IN THE GARDEN