gone into the dining-room, with its lavishly
spread table and mantel-hung stockings, and the chorus of hearty
greetings and warm hand-shaking had made his heart beat like a boy's.

The day had passed quickly. The gay breakfast; the unwrapping of
bundles; the sleigh-ride to church, where the service was not so long
as was the seemingly social meeting afterward; the bountiful dinner
with its table laden as in days of old rather than in the modern
fashion of elegant emptiness; the short afternoon--it was all soon
over, and the evening had gone even more rapidly.

The crackling logs and dancing flames in the huge old-fashioned
fireplace in the hall, the tree with its myriad of lighted candles,
the many guests from county's end to county's end, the delicious
supper and foaming egg-nog, and, last of all, the Virginia reel
danced in the vast parlors and led by Colonel Bushrod Ball and Madam
Beverly, who had not missed a Christmas night at Elmwood since she
was a bride some sixty years ago, made a memory to last through life,
a memory more than beautiful if-- He drew in a deep breath. There
should be no "if."

Through the days and the evenings of the days that followed there had
been no word alone with Claudia, however. She had taken him to see
the Prossers, but Jack and Janet had gone with them, and out-of-doors
and indoors there was always some one else. Was this done purposely?

He leaned forward and threw a couple of logs on the fire. The room
was cold. As the wood caught and the names curled around the rough
bark, the big tester bed, with its carved posts and valance of white
muslin, threw long shadows across the room, and in their brass
candlesticks the candle-light flared fitfully from the mantel,
touching lightly the bowl of holly with its scarlet berries, and
throwing pale gleams of color on the polished panels of the old
mahogany wardrobe on the opposite wall. For a moment he watched the
play of fire and candle, then got up and began to walk backward and
forward the length of the uncarpeted floor. Writing was a poor
weapon with which to win a woman's heart. Rather would he tell her
of his love, ask her to be his wife, and, if she would marry him,
compel her to say when; but he could not come as quickly as he could
write. He must go away that he might tell her what no longer was to
be withheld. Indecision had ever been unendurable, and uncertainty
was not in him to stand. Without her, life would be--ag