his your first winter North? You're just as much of a
Southerner as I am. You don't a bit know about Northern winters. You just
imagine they must be dreadful."

"I've heard about the snowdrifts over the fences, the terrific winds,
and the intense cold. The storms will beat upon this little old house,
and I shall think about it away off in Germany--and be anxious. Please,
Charlotte, don't be unreasonable. Why in the world shouldn't you do me
a favour like this? Red wants it just as much as I do, particularly on
the grandmother's account. Think how comfortable she would be in my
living-room, and in my guest-room. And I should so love to have her
there."

"I suppose I'm an ungrateful person, but I truly don't want to do it,
Len. Of course you know I wouldn't persist in a course that I thought
would do Granny harm, but I don't see how this can. She stays in bed in
the morning, as warm as toast, until I bring her down here, and I don't
bring her until the room is thoroughly warm. I give her her breakfast
here, and keep her perfectly comfortable all day, as she can tell you. At
night I take her up to a nest as cosy as a kitten's, and she has her hot
milk the last thing to send her off. Not a breath of discomfort touches
her beloved head."

The two looked at each other, Charlotte's expression proudly sweet,
Ellen's charmingly beseeching.

"I can see it's of no use," admitted Mrs. Burns, disappointedly, "but I'm
very sorry. Will you promise me this? If at any time it seems to you that
my plan is, after all, a better one for you than your own, you'll be good
and come straight over?"

"I promise you that I'll take proper care of both of us, and love you for
a devoted friend. That ought to satisfy you. Do you know that as you sit
there, with that furry hat on your head and your cheeks glowing, you're
the prettiest thing north of Mason-and-Dixon's line?"

"I know you're a flatterer, as you always were. If I can rival you in
that blue cotton--Charlotte, do you think you ought to wear cotton in
December?"

"You wear gauze and low-cut gowns in the evening in January, don't
you?--and would in Labrador, if you went out to dinner. What's the
difference between silver tissue in the evening and blue cotton in the
morning?"

"Considerable difference, as you very well know. But you're impossible to
argue with this morning, and I must run back to my packing. Red won't
hear of my taking more than a certain quite inadequate amount of