What was it to her that the dead vines, climbing the grim rugged crags,
were laden with tufts and corollated shapes wherever these fantasies
of flowers might cling, or that the snow flashed with crystalline
scintillations? She only knew that they glimmered and dazzled upon the
tears in her eyes, and she was moved to shed them afresh. She did not
wonder whether her venture had resulted amiss. She only wondered that
she had tried aught. And she was humbled.

When she reached Lonesome Cove she found the piggin where she had hid
it, and milked the cow in haste. It was no great task, for the animal
was going dry. "Their'n gins a gallon a milkin'," she said, in rueful
comparison.

As she came up the slope with the piggin on her head, her husband was
looking down from the porch with a lowering brow. "Why n't ye spen' the
day a-milkin' the cow?" he drawled. "Dawdlin' yander in the cow-pen till
this time in the mornin'! An' ter-morrer's Chrismus!"

The word smote upon her weary heart with a dull pain. She had no
cultured phrase to characterize the sensation as a presentiment, but
she was conscious of the prophetic process. To-night "all the mounting"
would be riotous with that dubious hilarity known as "Chrismus in the
bones," and there was no telling what might come from the combined orgy
and an inflamed public spirit.

She remembered the familiar doom of the mountain horse-thief, the men
lurking on the cliff, the inimical feeling against the ranger. She
furtively watched him with forebodings as he came and went at intervals
throughout the day.

Dusk had fallen when he suddenly looked in and beckoned to the
"Colonel," who required him to take her with him whenever he fed the
mare.

"Let me tie this hyar comforter over the Cunnel's head," Eugenia said,
as he bundled the child in a shawl and lifted her in his arms.

"Tain't no use," he declared. "The Cunnel ain't travellin' fur."

She heard him step from the creaking porch. She heard the dreary wind
without.

Within, the clumsy shadows of the warping-bars, the spinning-wheel,
and the churn were dancing in the firelight on the wall. The supper was
cooking on the live coals. The children, popping corn in the ashes, were
laughing; as her eye fell upon the "Colonel's" vacant little chair her
mind returned to the child's excursion with her father, and again she
wondered futilely where the mare could be hid. The next moment she was
heartily glad that she did not know.

I