came
over to assure you that if in the morning your roof has disappeared under
a drift you may rest easy in the knowledge that you will surely be
shovelled out before noon. My wife sent me over to find out if you had
plenty of supplies on hand."

"We weren't provided for quite so long a siege, but I was coming over to
telephone from your house this morning. It's a great storm, isn't it? I
think it's fun, for it's my first experience. Do tell your boys to come
over and make a snow fort or something in my front yard."

"They'll be delighted, when the storm stops. There's no use making forts
now, you know."

"No, I didn't know. I was prepared to go out this morning and play with
them."

Macauley looked at her. "Not in that dress, I hope," he observed,
bluntly. "It beats me, the way women wear their thinnest clothes in the
coldest weather. I wonder how I'd feel with the kind of rig you're
wearing. And it's none too warm here, it strikes me, if you don't mind my
saying it, in spite of that good-looking fire."

"The room warms rather slowly in this extreme weather," Charlotte
admitted. She was standing close to the fire, in the unquestionably
summerlike dress of the blue cotton she chose for all her working frocks.
With its low rolling collar and short sleeves it certainly did not
suggest comfort. If Macauley had suspected that beneath it was no
compensating protection, he would have been considerably more concerned
than he was. His wife was accustomed to explain to him, when he
criticised the inadequacy of her attire, that she fully made up for it by
some extra, hidden warmth of clothing. And when he complained that anyhow
she didn't look warm she invariably replied that nothing could be more
deceiving than looks.

He walked over to the windows. They were rattling stormily with each gust
of the tempest raging outside, and as he held his hand at their edges he
could feel all the winds of heaven raging in.

"Jupiter!" he exclaimed. "No wonder you're cold. That stage fire of yours
can't warm all outdoors. I'll send for some window strips and nail you
up."

"Please don't bother, Mr. Macauley. I am going to stuff them with cotton
myself, and that will do quite well. If you will be so kind as to
telephone this order to the grocery for me I shall be grateful, though
I hardly see how the delivery wagons can get about."

He took the paper she handed him, and absently, after the manner of the
householder, his eyes scanned