g herself with all the greater assiduity to her muslin curtains
and ruffled pillow-shams. Stephen, too, had his momentary pangs. There
were times when he could calm his doubts only by working on the little
house. The mere sight of the beloved floors and walls and ceilings
comforted his heart, and brought him good cheer.

The winter was a cold one, so bitterly cold that even the rapid water at
the Gray Rock was a mass of curdled yellow ice, something that had
only occurred once or twice before within the memory of the oldest
inhabitant.

It was also a very gay season for Pleasant River and Edgewood. Never had
there been so many card-parties, sleigh-rides, and tavern dances, and
never such wonderful skating. The river was one gleaming, glittering
thoroughfare of ice from Milliken's Mills to the dam at the Edgewood
bridge. At sundown bonfires were built here and there on the mirror-like
surface, and all the young people from the neighboring villages gathered
on the ice; while detachments of merry, rosy-cheeked boys and girls,
those who preferred coasting, met at the top of Brigadier Hill, from
which one could get a longer and more perilous slide than from any other
point in the township.

Claude Merrill, in his occasional visits from Boston, was very much in
evidence at the Saturday evening ice parties. He was not an artist
at the sport himself, but he was especially proficient in the art of
strapping on a lady's skates, and murmuring,--as he adjusted the last
buckle,--"The prettiest foot and ankle on the river!" It cannot be
denied that this compliment gave secret pleasure to the fair village
maidens who received it, but it was a pleasure accompanied by electric
shocks of excitement. A girl's foot might perhaps be mentioned, if a
fellow were daring enough, but the line was rigidly drawn at the ankle,
which was not a part of the human frame ever alluded to in the polite
society of Edgewood at that time.

Rose, in her red linsey-woolsey dress and her squirrel furs and cap,
was the life of every gathering, and when Stephen took her hand and they
glided upstream, alone together in the crowd, he used to wish that they
might skate on and on up the crystal ice-path of the river, to the moon
itself, whither it seemed to lead them.

VIII. The Garden of Eden

But the Saco all this time was meditating one of its surprises. The
snapping cold weather and the depth to which the water was frozen were
aiding it in its prepar