which always led me so along, as if
I were a slave to a beautiful bell,--

"Now, John, we are wasting time, dear. You have praised my hair, till it
curls with pride, and my eyes till you cannot see them, even if they are
brown diamonds which I have heard for the fiftieth time at least; though
I never saw such a jewel. Don't you think it is high time to put on your
snow-shoes, John?"

"Certainly not," I answered, "'till we have settled something more. I was
so cold when I came in; and now I am as warm as a cricket. And so are
you, you lively soul; though you are not upon my hearth yet."

"Remember, John," said Lorna, nestling for a moment to me; "the severity
of the weather makes a great difference between us. And you must never
take advantage."

"I quite understand all that, dear. And the harder it freezes the
better, while that understanding continues. Now do try to be serious."

"I try to be serious! And I have been trying fifty times, and could
not bring you to it, John! Although I am sure the situation, as the
Counsellor says at the beginning of a speech, the situation, to say the
least, is serious enough for anything. Come, Gwenny, imitate him."

Gwenny was famed for her imitation of the Counsellor making a speech;
and she began to shake her hair, and mount upon a footstool; but I
really could not have this, though even Lorna ordered it. The truth
was that my darling maiden was in such wild spirits, at seeing me so
unexpected, and at the prospect of release, and of what she had never
known, quiet life and happiness, that like all warm and loving natures,
she could scarce control herself.

"Come to this frozen window, John, and see them light the stack-fire.
They will little know who looks at them. Now be very good, John. You
stay in that corner, dear, and I will stand on this side; and try to
breathe yourself a peep-hole through the lovely spears and banners. Oh,
you don't know how to do it. I must do it for you. Breathe three times,
like that, and that; and then you rub it with your fingers, before it
has time to freeze again."

All this she did so beautifully, with her lips put up like cherries, and
her fingers bent half back, as only girls can bend them, and her little
waist thrown out against the white of the snowed-up window, that I made
her do it three times over; and I stopped her every time and let it
freeze again, that so she might be the longer. Now I knew that all her
love was mine, every bit a