"Well, Miss, I let them do what they like. If Dr. Jerce closes the window, I leave it so; when Dr. Wentworth opens it, I let it be. Sometimes that window is open all night and closed all day. At other times, Miss, it's open all day and closed all night. It depends on them dratted doctors." Clarice laughed at this explanation, and seeing that her guardian, to all appearance, was in a healthy sleep, went away. "Tell me when he wakes up, Chalks," said she, at the door. "Yes, Miss, if Master don't sleep for one hundred years, like the Sleeping Beauty," and Chalks chuckled at his own simple wit. Clarice passed the morning in attending to her domestic duties, and had a consultation with Mrs. Rebson about the Christmas festivities. That cheerful housekeeper remarked that it would be as well to make the house as bright as possible, since The Domestic Prophet declared that something terrible would happen before Christmas. What the event might be, Mrs. Rebson could not tell, as the prophet, after the manner of his kind, was obscure in the wording of his oracles. Nevertheless, Clarice became infected with the vague dread which Mrs. Rebson insisted she felt herself, and the memory of that oddly delivered envelope, containing the stamped picture of the purple fern, did not tend to dissipate her uneasiness. When she left Mrs. Rebson, still prophesying coming woes, like an elderly Cassandra, the girl felt that a walk would do her good, and, putting on her furs, she sallied forth, eager to breathe a less portentous atmosphere. The day was bright and clear, the snow was hard and clean. In the lucid air lurked the sting of frost. Sitting over a fire, one was apt to shiver; but smart walking brought a colour to the most wan cheeks, and communicated a glow to the whole body. Clarice looked extremely pretty as the exercise tinted her oval face, and sent the warm blood spinning through her youthful veins. She walked in a determined, swinging way, with steadfast eyes and a firmly closed mouth, like a woman who knows her own mind, and who means to have her own way. It needed a very strong man to master this young lady of the new school, and Clarice believed that Ackworth was just the man to exercise authority. Certainly, Dr. Jerce might have mastered her also, as he was stern and strong. But then she did not love Dr. Jerce, and only from the tyrant she loved was Miss Baird ready to take orders.