At half-past seven, Ed Church swung into Jim Lee's yard, with a horse all bells, and a cutter a billow of buffalo robes. He did not dare leave Grey Eagle, his pet colt, for Grey Eagle was restless with the wintry evening air and wanted to go. So Ed Church notified Lide of his coming by shouting, “House!” with a great voice.

Grey Eagle made a plunge at the sound, but was brought up by the bit.

“How'dy do, Ed,” said Lide, as she came out the side door. She looked rosy and pretty with her muskrat muff and cape.

“Hello, Lide,” said Ed. “You'll have to scramble in yourself. I can hardly hold the colt this weather, when he don't have nothin' to do but eat.”

Lide scrambled in. As Ed Church stood up in the cutter to allow Lide a chance to be seated, her face came close to his. Taking his eyes from Grey Eagle for the mere fraction of a second, he kissed her dexterously. Lide received the caress with the most admirable composure, and Ed Church himself did not act as if the idea was a discovery or the experiment new.

“Let him out, Ed!” said Lide, when they were well into the road.

There was a foot of snow on the ground. The fence corners showed great drifts, while each rail of the fence had a ruffle of its own of cold, white snow. As far as one could see in the moonlight, the fields to each side were like milk. In the background stood the grey woods laced against the sky. Here and there a lamp shone in a neighbour's window like an eye of fire.

Stowe Township was out that night. The steady beat of the bells could be heard ahead and behind. Ed Church sent Grey Eagle forward with long strides, the cutter following over the hard, packed snow with no more of resistance than a feather. Lide held her muff to her face, so that she might open her mouth to talk without catching any of the flying snowballs from Grey Eagle's nervous hoofs.

“It'll be a big spellin'-school to-night,” said Lide.

“Yes, I guess it will,” replied Ed. “I hear folks are comin' clear from Hammond Corners.”

“If that Gentry girl comes,” said Lide, “mind! you're not to speak to her, Ed. If you do, you can go home alone.”

Ed grinned with an air of pleased superiority.

“Get up,” he said to Grey Eagle. Then to Lide: “Go on! You're jealous!”

“No, I ain't!” said Lide, with a lofty intonation. “Speak to her if you want to! What do I care!”

“I won't speak to her, Lide.”

Ed looked at his sweetheart to see how she received his submission. As the road was level and straight at this point, and Grey Eagle had worn away the wire edge of his appetite to “go,” Ed put his face in behind the muskrat muff and kissed Lide again. The victim abetted the outrage.

“I saw ye!” yelled a happy voice behind. It was Ben Francis with Jennie Ruple. They also were enthroned in a cutter.

“What if you did?” retorted Lide with a toss.

“Do it again if I want to!” shouted Ed Church with much joyous hardihood.

“I never asked you to marry me yet, did I, Lide?” observed Ed Church, after two minutes of silence.

“No, you didn't,” said Lide from behind the muskrat muff. The words would have sounded hard, if it were not for the sudden soft sweetness of the voice, which was half a whisper.

“Well, I'll do it now,” said Ed, with much resolution, but a little shake in the tone. “You'll marry me, Lide, when we get ready?”

“Ed, what do you think father 'll say?”

Ed Church knew Lide's father found no joy in him. The next time his voice took on a moody, half-sullen sound.

“Don't care what he says! I ain't marryin' the hull Lee family.”

“But s'pose he says we can't?”

“If he does, I'll run away with you, Lide,” and Ed Church's tones were touched with storm. “I'm goin* to marry you even if all the Lees in the state stand in the way!”

Lide crowded a bit closer to Ed at this, and, holding the muskrat muff against her face to keep her nose from getting red, said nothing. Lide was thinking what a noble fellow Ed was, and how much she admired him.