ent of snow on so fine a scale that certainly for the rest of their
days they will go about saying: "Ah, you should see the winters we used
to have when we were children..."

The snow began on the very day after Jeremy's birthday, coming down
doubtfully, slowly, little grey flakes against a grey sky, then
sparkling white, then vanishing flashes of moisture on a wet,
unsympathetic soil. That day the snow did not lie; and for a week it did
not come again; then with a whirl it seized the land, and for two
days and nights did not loosen its grip. From the nursery windows the
children watched it, their noses making little rings on the window-pane,
their delighted eyes snatching fascinating glimpses of figures tossed
through the storm, cabs beating their way, the rabbit-skin man, the
milkman, the postman, brave adventurers all, fighting, as it seemed, for
their very lives.

For two days the children did not leave the house, and the natural
result of that was that on the second afternoon tempers were, like so
many dogs, straining, tugging, pulling at their chains.

It could not be denied that Jeremy had been tiresome to everyone since
the afternoon when he had heard the news of his going to school next
September. It had seemed to him a tremendous event, the Beginning of the
End. To the others, who lived in the immediate present, it was a crisis
so remote as scarcely to count at all. Mary would have liked to be
sentimental about it, but from this she was sternly prevented. There was
then nothing more to be said...

Jeremy was suddenly isolated from them all. His destiny was peculiar.
They were girls, he was a boy. They understood neither his fears nor his
ambitions; he needed terribly a companion. The snow, shutting them in,
laughed at their struggles against monotony. The nursery clock struck
three and they realised that two whole hours must pass before the next
meal. Mary, her nose red from pressing on the window-pane, her eyes
gazing through her huge spectacles wistfully at Jeremy, longed to
suggest that she should read aloud to him. She knew that he hated it;
she pretended to herself that she did not know.

Jeremy stared desperately at Helen who was sitting, dignified and
collected, in the wicker chair hemming a minute handkerchief.

"We might play Pirates," Jeremy said with a little cough, the better to
secure her attention. There was no answer.

"Or there's the hut in the wood--if anyone likes it better," he added