Whether it was the first night out or the second, I did not know, and
this offered ground for argument. Virginia said that we had lived
through so much that it had probably made the time seem longer than it
was; but I argued that the time of holding her in my arms, kissing her,
telling her how much I loved her, and persuading her to marry me as
soon as we could get to Elder Thorndyke's, made it seem shorter--and
this led to more efforts to make the time pass away. Finally, I dug out
again, just as we both were really and truly hungry, and went back after
Virginia. I made her wrap up warmly, and we crawled out, covered with
chaff, rumpled, mussed up, but safe and happy; and found the sun shining
over a landscape of sparkling frost, with sun-dogs in the sky and
millions of bright needles of frost in the air, and a light breeze still
blowing from the northwest, so bitingly cold that a finger or cheek was
nipped by it in a moment's exposure. And within forty rods of us was the
farmstead of Amos Bemisdarfer; who stood looking at us in amazement as
we came across the rippled surface of the snow to his back door.
"I kess," said Amos, "it mus' have peen your team I put in de parn lass
night. Come in. Preckfuss is retty."
* * * * *
I left it to Virginia--she had been so sensible and wise in all her
words since we had agreed to be married at once--to tell the elder and
Grandma Thorndyke about it. But she went to pieces when she tried it.
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