He glanced down at her, and she smiled up at him with innocent eyes.
“Think of the snow on the ground,” she went on, “and the robins hopping about. You should just see me scampering over the snow in my big country boots, and sliding down the lane. Oh, it’s lovely!”
“I shouldn’t think my house is very warm,” he mused.
“It could be made awfully cosy, I’m sure,” she said. “You must have big log fires; and if I were you I’d buy some screens to put behind the sofas and armchairs around the fire, so that you can have little lamp-lit corners where you can sit as warm as a toast.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” he answered.
“Have you got a woolly waistcoat?” she asked, and when he replied in the negative she told him that she would knit one for him at once. “I love knitting,” she said; and at the moment she believed that she did.
As they walked on she enlarged upon the delights of winter; and such pleasant pictures did she draw that Jim began to think the coming experience might hold unexpected happiness for him. She managed, somehow, to introduce herself into all the scenes which she sketched, now as a smiling little figure, vibrating with healthy life in the open air, now purring like a warm, sleepy kitten before the fire indoors.
“From what I saw the other night,” she told him, “you seem to have an excellent hot-water supply. You’ll be able to have beautiful hot baths.... I simply love lying in a boiling bath before I go to bed, don’t you?”
“I can’t say I do,” he laughed. “It makes the sheets feel so cold.”
“Oh, but you must have them warmed, with a hot-bottle or something,” she explained. “When it’s very, very cold I sometimes creep into bed with mother, and we cuddle up and warm each other.”