fter them, you know. Papa says he would rather have had a son
named Peyton; but I tell him the son might have been wicked and brought his
hairs in sorrow to the grave."

"Well, I dare say, you're right," he stopped with a sweep of his hand, and
stood looking to where a flock of crows were flying over the dried spectres
of carrot flowers that stood up above the snow; "That's fine, now, isn't
it?" he asked seriously.

Betty followed his gesture, then she gave a little cry and threw her arms
round the dogs. "The poor crows are so hungry," she said. "No, no, you
mustn't chase them, Bill and Peyton, it isn't right, you see. Here, Jake,
come and hold the dogs, while I feed the crows." She drew a handful of corn
from the pocket of her cloak, and flung it out into the meadow.

"I always bring corn for them," she explained; "they get so hungry, and
sometimes they starve to death right out here. Papa says they are
pernicious birds; but I don't care--do you mind their being pernicious?"

"I? Not in the least. I assure you I trouble myself very little about the
morals of my associates. I'm not fond of crows; but it is their voices
rather than their habits I object to. I can't stand their eternal
'cawing!'--it drives me mad."

"I suppose foxes are pernicious beasts, also," said Betty, as she walked
on; "but there's an old red fox in the woods that I've been feeding for
years. I don't know anything that foxes like to eat except chickens, but I
carry him a basket of potatoes and turnips and bread, and pile them up
under a pine tree; it's just as well for him to acquire the taste for them,
isn't it?"

She smiled at Dan above her fur tippet, and he forgot her words in watching
the animation come and go in her face. He fell to musing over her decisive
little chin, the sensitive curves of her nostrils and sweet wide mouth, and
above all over her kind yet ardent look, which gave the peculiar beauty to
her eyes.

"Ah, is there anything in heaven or earth that you don't like?" he asked,
as he gazed at her.

"That I don't like? Shall I really tell you?"

He bent toward her over his armful of holly.

"I have a capacious breast for secrets," he assured her.

"Then you will never breathe it?"

"Will you have me swear?" he glanced about him.

"Not by the inconstant moon," she entreated merrily.

"Well, by my 'gracious self'; what's the rest of it?"

She coloured and drew away from him. His eyes made her self-conscious, ill
at ea