hood. Why may not they be given the work of
love still to do? It is all in the music of God, that they live, and
make happy, and why should I believe that it is now taken from them to
do good? Much that I think lies deep in my heart, and I cannot tell it
in words."

"Nor can I. But my thoughts--" For an instant Amalia, looking at him,
saw in his face the same look of inward fear--or rather of despair
that had appalled Larry, but it went as quickly as it appeared, and
she wondered afterward if she had really seen it, or if it was a
strange trick of the firelight in the windowless cabin.

"And your thoughts, Mr. 'Arry?"

"They are not to be told." Again he rose to go, and stood and looked
down on her, smiling. "I see you have already tried the crutches."

"Yes. I found them in the snow, before the door. How I got there? I
did hop. It was as if the good angels had come in the night. I wake
and something make me all glad--and I go to the door to look at the
whiteness, and then I am sorry, because of Sir Kildene, then I see
before me--while that I stand on one foot, and hop--hop--hop--so, I
see the crutch lie in the snow. Oh, Mr. 'Arry, now so pale you are! It
is that you have worked in the night to make them--Is not? That is
sorrowful to me. But now will I do for you pleasant things, because I
can move to do them on these, where before I must always sit
still--still--Ah, how that is hard to do! One good thing comes to me
of this hurt. It makes the old shoes to last longer. How is it never
to wear out shoes? Never to walk in them."

Harry laughed. "We'll have to make you some moccasins."

"And what is moccasins? Ah, yes, the Indian shoe. I like them well, so
soft they must be, and so pretty with the beads. I have seen once such
shoes on one little Indian child. Her mother made them."

Then Harry made her try the crutches to be sure they were quite right,
and, seeing that they were a little too long, he measured them with
care, and carried them back to the shed, and there he shortened them
and polished them with sand and a piece of flint, until he succeeded
in making a very workmanlike job of them.

At noon he brought them back, and stood in the doorway a moment beside
her, looking out through the whiteness upon the transformed world. In
spite of what that snow might mean to Larry Kildene, and through him
to them, of calamity, maybe death, a certain elation possessed Harry.
His body was braced to unusual energy by th