night. Winter had come in utter earnest. Side by side we stood and looked out on the scene. The air was thick with snow-flakes. We could not see ten rods from the house.
"Plague take this climate," said I. "When it once comes down this way there 's no let up to it till spring; I know all about it. I spent a winter in Vermont once, and from the first of December till the middle of March we never saw an inch of bare ground. I just hate it. Now, we can't look after those stones for three months."
"I don't believe there are any more of them, Will," said Jim, speaking slowly and in an earnest tone. "I believe there was just that one left there for Ally, by angels, for all I know. Did you see how that light flickered on her face when she stroked her cheek with the stone? And if there were any such stones would n't Dr. Miller know? Should n't we have seen some in the cabinet?"
"Oh, pshaw! you dear old Jim," I said. "I agree with Dr. Miller that God don't make stones on earth for gates to heaven, nor for angels to give to earthly children—not even to Ally!" I added, with a sudden conscience-stricken memory of the picture of her the night before, with the tangled crimson oak wreaths and the yellow curls and the flying feet, and how I myself had shuddered in the twilight to recall the thrill of hot pain which shot through my nerves when she first handed me the stone.
