e cowered down on the rug and muffled herself more closely in her
shawl, lying quite still, with a sort of comfort in the feeling of
warmth which began to creep over her.

Elizabeth pushed back the heavy curtains and looked out into the night.
A stream of dim, silvery radiance shot into the room, and played like
rippling water over the floor.

Elsie half started to her feet with a cry.

"What is that? What is that?"

"The moon is up," said Elizabeth, simply.

Elsie laid her head down again, Elizabeth stood leaning her hands on the
window-sill, looking straight before her.

The moonlight was peculiarly clear, and millions of stars shone forth
with the diamond radiance seen only in a frosty night. Every object was
visible. Hoar frost shone up whitely from the crisp grass of the lawn,
and long black shadows were cast downward by the trees, shaken like
drapery when the wind tossed the branches up and down.

From where Elizabeth stood she could look out over the withered
flower-beds and into the thicket beyond.

Suddenly her eye caught sight of a man standing under the cypress tree,
which rose up gloomy and dark, its branches waving slowly to and fro,
looking, to her excited fancy like spectral hands that beckoned her
forth to her doom.

She uttered a faint sound and strained her eyes towards it with a chill
feeling of horror. Elsie was roused again by the noise, and asked,
quickly:

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"What made you groan, then?"

"I am looking out," returned Elizabeth, in a low voice, leaning more
heavily against the window for support, "he is there!"

"Come away, come away!" cried Elsie, muffling her face more closely in
her shawl, as if to shut out some dreadful object. "Come back to the
fire, Elizabeth, do!"

"Surely, if I can go out there to meet him," she said, "I have courage
enough to look at the old tree."

Elsie only groaned anew. She sat upright and rested herself against the
chair her sister had left.

"How does the night look, Bessie?" she asked, in a low, scared tone.

"The moonlight is so ghostly," returned Elizabeth; "it looks frightened.
No wonder--no wonder!"

Elsie trembled more violently, but it seemed as if some power stronger
than her own will forced her to continue these harassing questions.

"And the cypress, Bessie, how does it look?"

"Stern and dark--no wonder, sheltering him," cried Elizabeth. "It
beckons to me; the branches look like giant arm