One day there was a noise.  I had heard a great many noises, so I didn’t take much notice.  It came up crunching on the snow, and I didn’t know but it was Gabriel or somebody with his chariot.  Then I thought more likely it was a wolf.

Pretty soon I looked up, and the door was open; some men were coming in, and a woman.  She was ahead of them all, she was; she came in with a great spring, and had my head against her neck, and her arm holding me up, and her cheek down to mine, with her dear, sweet, warm breath all over me; and that was all I knew.

Well, there was brandy, and there was a fire, and there were blankets, and there was hot water, and I don’t know what; but warmer than all the rest I felt her breath against my cheek, and her arms about my neck, and her long hair, which she had wrapped all in, about my hands.

So by and by my voice came.  “Nannie!” said I.

“O don’t!” said she, and first I knew she was crying.

“But I will,” says I, “for I’m sorry.”

“Well, so am I,” says she.

Said I, “I thought I was dead, and hadn’t made up, Nannie.”

“O dear!” said she; and down fell a great hot splash right on my face.

Says I, “It was all me, for I ought to have gone back and kissed you.”

“No, it was me” said she, “for I wasn’t asleep, not any such thing.  I peeked out, this way, through my lashes, to see if you wouldn’t come back.  I meant to wake up then.  Dear me!” says she, “to think what a couple of fools we were, now!”

“Nannie,” says I, “you can let the lamp smoke all you want to!”

“Aaron—­” she began, just as she had begun that other night,—­“Aaron—­” but she didn’t finish, and—­Well, well, no matter; I guess you don’t want to hear any more, do you?

But sometimes I think, Johnny, when it comes my time to go,—­if ever it does,—­I’ve waited a good while for it,—­the first thing I shall see will be her face, looking as it looked at me just then.

Calico.

It was about time for the four-o’clock train.

After all, I wonder if it is worth telling,—­such a simple, plotless record of a young girl’s life, made up of Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays, like yours or mine.  Sharley was so exactly like other people!  How can it be helped that nothing remarkable happened to her?  But you would like the story?

It was about time for the four-o’clock train, then.

Sharley, at the cost of half a sugar-bowl (never mind syntax; you know I mean the sugar, not the glass), had enticed Moppet to betake himself out of sight and out of mind till somebody should signify a desire for his engaging presence; had steered clear of Nate and Methuselah, and was standing now alone on the back doorsteps opposite the chaise-house.  One could see a variety of things from those doorsteps,—­the chaise-house, for instance, with the old, solid, square-built wagon rolled into it (Sharley passed many a long “mending