it
for a moment in surprise. The snow had slipped down from it, and lay
in rolls and piles about the base, intermixed with the sere husks and
blades that seemed torn out of the great cone. "Waal, sir, Spot mus' hev
been hongry fur true, ter kem a-foragin' this wise. Looks ez ef she hev
been fairly a-burrowin."

She turned and glanced over her shoulder at tracks in the
snow--shapeless holes, and filling fast--which she did not doubt were
the footprints of the big red cow, standing half in and half out of the
wide door, slowly chewing her cud, her breath visibly curling out on
the chill air, her great lips opening to emit a muttered low. She moved
forward suddenly into the shelter as Evelina started anew toward it,
holding the piggin in one hand and clasping the baby in the other arm.

[Illustration: Stole noiselessly in the soft snow 145]

Evelina noted the sound of her brothers' two axes, busy at the
wood-pile, their regular cleavage splitting the air with a sharp stroke
and bringing a crystalline shivering echo from the icy mountain. She did
not see the crouching figure that came cautiously burrowing out from
the stack. Absalom rose to his full height, looking keenly about him the
while, and stole noiselessly in the soft snow to the stable, and peered
in through a crevice in the wall.

Evelina had placed the piggin upon the straw-covered ground, and stood
among the horned cattle and the huddling sheep, her soft melancholy face
half shaded by the red shawl thrown over her head and shoulders. A tress
of her brown hair escaped and curled about her white neck, and hung down
over the bosom of her dark-blue homespun dress. Against her shoulder the
dun-colored cow rubbed her horned head. The baby was in a pensive
mood, and scarcely babbled. The reflection of the snow was on his
face, heightening the exquisite purity of the tints of his infantile
complexion. His gentle, fawn-like eyes were full of soft and lustrous
languors. His long lashes drooped over them now, and again were lifted.
His short down of yellow hair glimmered golden against the red shawl
over his mother's shoulders.

One of the beasts sank slowly upon the ground--a tired creature
doubtless, and night was at hand; then another, and still another. Their
posture reminded Absalom, as he looked, that this was Christmas Eve,
and of the old superstition that the cattle of the barns spend the night
upon their knees, in memory of the wondrous Presence that once gr