f this world, I guess. Sometimes you can
hear a bough break under the weight of snow, with a report like a
cannon. The only thing finer than winter is spring. I don't mean lilac
time; but before that, the very earliest hint of the break-up. Used to
seem that there was something wild in me that wanted to be on the march
before there was a bud in sight. I'm a Northern animal some way; born in
December; always feel better in winter. I used to watch for the
northward flight of the game fowl--wanted to go with the birds. Too bad
they're killing them all off. Wild geese are getting mighty scarce;
geese always interested me. I once shot a gander in a Kankakee marsh
that had an Eskimo arrow in its breast. A friend of mine, distinguished
ethnologist, verified that; said he knew the tribe that made arrows of
that pattern. But I was going to say that one night,--must have been
when I was fourteen,--I had some fun with a bear . . ."

Sylvia did not hear the rest of the story. She had been sitting in the
shadow of the porch, with her lips apart, listening, wondering, during
this prelude. Ware's references to the North woods had touched lightly
some dim memory of her own; somewhere she had seen moon-flooded, snowy
woodlands where silence lay upon the world as soft as moonlight itself.
The picture drawn by the minister had been vivid enough; for a moment
her own memory of a similar winter landscape seemed equally clear; but
she realized with impatience that it faded quickly and became dim and
illusory, like a scene in an ill-lighted steropticon. To-night she felt
that a barrier lay between her and those years of her life that
antedated her coming to her grandfather's house by the college. It
troubled her, as such mirages of memory trouble all of us; but Ware
finished his story, and amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Martin
rose.

"Late hours, Sylvia," said Professor Kelton when they were alone. "It's
nearly eleven o'clock and time to turn in."

CHAPTER IV

WE LEARN MORE OF SYLVIA

Andrew Kelton put out his hand to say good-night a moment after Sylvia
had vanished.

"Sit down, Andrew," said Mrs. Owen. "It's too early to go to bed. That
draft's not good for the back of your head. Sit over here."

He had relaxed after the departure of the dinner guests and looked tired
and discouraged. Mrs. Owen brought a bottle of whiskey and a pitcher of
water and placed them near his elbow.

"Try it, Andrew. I usually take a thimbl