y and nervous she could not look about at all. Stephen took off
her cloak and all her outer wraps, and then made her come and see her
reflection in a little square looking-glass that he had obtained for her
at quite a high price; but Katrine could not face the mirror, and hid
her blushing cheeks and downcast eyes on his shoulder instead. Stephen
put his arm round her. "You don't regret what you have done?" he asked
in alarm, pressing her close to him.

"No, oh no, dear Steve, only it's all so strange; let's go back to the
other room."

They returned, as she wished, and found that Talbot had laid the dinner
for them,--a dinner he had spent all the morning in preparing,--and they
sat down to it with a gaiety that made up for the shortness of supplies.
After dinner they drew close round the fire and prolonged the roasting
and eating of chestnuts and drinking whisky throughout the
afternoon,--for whisky was there, strongly as Stephen objected to see
her drink it; still it was their wedding day, and he let it pass. As
darkness came down a whirling snow-storm swept through the gulch; they
could see the thin sharp flakes fly past the window on the cutting wind,
and hear the whistling roar of the storm as it struck and beat upon the
cabin. They only flung more logs into the stove, and gave a backward
glance over their shoulders from time to time towards the window. By
nine in the evening, when Talbot was leaving them to go to his own
cabin, it had calmed down a little, though the wind still moaned in the
hollows of the gulch.

Stephen and Katrine stood at the window a second after he had gone,
looking out into the curious misty whiteness and blackness commingled of
the night.

"I am sorry there should be such a storm the first day you are here,
darling," said Stephen softly, putting his arm round her waist.

"Why, what does that matter? I do not mind, I have you to protect me.
You will always now, Steve, won't you, from everything? I don't want
ever to go back to that gambling life again."

He drew her into his arms.

"Of course, of course I will," he said, kissing her. "I will always take
care of you."

Her arms were interlaced about his neck, they looked into each other's
eyes, and neither knew any more whether it was a storm or a calm in the
night outside.

For the first few weeks after their marriage Katrine was more than
happy, and it seemed to those lonely beings, sheltered from the savage
siege of Nature only