creatures that demanded least.

"That's the nature of man," he said disapprovingly, "topmost of all
brutes."

When he stepped out of doors after supper that night, the clouds had
hidden the moon. But there was light enough for him to see his way
across the ice fields to Gabriella. The Star of Love shone about his
feet.

XV

When Gabriella awoke on that same morning after the storm, she too
ascertained that her shutters could not be opened. But Gabriella did
not go down into the kitchen for hot water to melt the ice from the
bolts and hinges. She fled back across the cold matting to the
high-posted big bed and cuddled down solitary into its warmth again,
tucking the counterpane under her chin and looking out from the pillows
with eyes as fresh as flowers. Flowers in truth Gabriella's eyes
were--the closing and disclosing blossoms of a sweet nature. Somehow
they made you think of earliest spring, of young leaves, of the
flutings of birds deep within a glade sifted with golden light,
fragrant with white fragrance. They had their other seasons: their
summer hours of angry flash and swift downpour; their autumn days of
still depths and soberness, and autumn nights of long, quiet rainfalls
when no one knew. One season they lacked: Gabriella's eyes had no
winter.

Brave spirit! Had nature not inclined her to spring rather than autumn,
had she not inherited joyousness and the temperamental gayety of the
well-born, she must long ago have failed, broken down. Behind her were
generations of fathers and mothers who had laughed heartily all their
days. The simple gift of wholesome laughter, often the best as often
the only remedy for so many discomforts and absurdities in life--this
was perhaps to be accounted among her best psychological heirlooms.

Her first thought on awaking late this morning (for she too had been
kept awake by the storm) was that there could be no school. And this
was only Friday, with Saturday and Sunday to follow--three whole
consecutive days of holiday! Gabriella's spirits invariably rose in a
storm; her darkest days were her brightest. The weather that tried her
soul was the weather which was disagreeable, but not disagreeable
enough to break up school. When she taught, she taught with all her
powers and did it well; when not teaching, she hated it with every
faculty and capacity of her being. And to discharge patiently and
thoroughly a daily hated work--that takes noble blood.

Nothing i