started stiffly enough, in the teeth of the big, dark wind, till the
motion, and the bottle, began to take effect. A haymow loomed. We flung
ourselves, panting, against it, and, sinking back into its yielding
bulk, drew long breaths.

"Did we think it was cold?" I murmured; "or windy?"

We were on the leeward side of it, and it gave generous shelter. The
wind sighed gently over the top of the mow, breathed past its sides,
never touching us, and we gazed up at the stars.

"The sky is fairly gray with them," I said.

"Perhaps," said Jonathan lazily, "it's that bottle, making you see ten
stars grow where one grew before."

"Perhaps," I suggested, choosing to ignore this speech, "it's the wind,
blowing the stars around and raising star-dust."

We lay in our protecting mow, and the warmth of our bodies drew out of
it faint odors of salt hay. We did not talk. There are times when one
seems to exist in poise, with eternity on all sides. One's thoughts do
not move, they float.

"Well?" said Jonathan at last.

I could hear the hay rustle as he straightened up.

"Don't interrupt," I answered.

But my spirit had come down to earth, and after the first jolt I
realized that, as usual, Jonathan was right.

We plunged out again into the buffeting wind and the starlit darkness,
and I followed blindly as Jonathan led across the marshes, around pools,
over ditches, until we began to see the friendly twinkle of house lights
on the edge of the village. On through the lanes to the highroad,
stumbling now and then on its stiffened ruts and ridges. As houses
thickened the gale grew noisy, singing in telephone wires, whistling
around barn corners, slamming blinds and doors, and rushing in the
tree-tops.

"O for that haymow!" I gasped.

"The open fire will be better." Jonathan flung back comfort across the
wind.

Ten minutes later we had made harbor in the little house by the shore.
The candles were lighted, the fire set ablaze, and as we sat before it
cooking chops and toast I said, "No, Jonathan, the open fire isn't any
better than the haymow."

"But different?" he suggested.

"Yes, quite different."

"And good in its own poor way."

He turned his chop. Chops and toast and a blazing fire give forth odors
of distracting pleasantness under such circumstances.

"I think," I said, "that each gives point to the other."

"Aren't you glad I took you for ducks?" he asked.

I mused, watching my toast. "I suppose," I said,