“Wern’t you afraid?”
“Not a bit.”
“You funny little mother—well.”
“And by-and-by I went to sleep, and slept soundly till morning. Long before daylight my mother lifted me out of bed, washed and dressed me by a nice warm fire, and then took me down in her arms to breakfast. I had never eaten breakfast by candle-light before. I liked the bright lights, and the smell of the hot coffee and hot cakes, and my mother’s bright, cheerful face. It did not take us long to eat breakfast, but before we had done the carriage drove up to the door. Then my mother wrapped some hot bricks upon the hearth in some pieces of carpet.”
“What for?”
“To keep our feet warm in the carriage, while we were riding, and then she pulled another pair of warm stockings over my red shoes and stockings, and put on my wadded cloak, and tucking my curls behind my ears, tied a blue silk hood, trimmed with swan’s down under my chin, and putting on her own cloak and bonnet, led me to the door.
“I had never seen the stars before; they glittered up in the clear blue sky, oh, so bright, so beautiful! The keen frost-air nipped my little cheeks, but when they lifted me into the carriage, I was sorry not to see the pretty stars any longer; they wrapped up every thing but the tip end of my nose, in shawls and tippets, and though I could not see the bright stars any more, I kept thinking about them; I wondered what kept them from falling down on the ground, and where they staid in the daytime, and how long it would take me to count them all, and, if one ever did fall down on the ground, if it would be stealing for me to keep it for ‘my ownty doan-ty.’
“I was not used to getting up so early, so the motion of the carriage soon rocked me to sleep, and when I awoke it was broad daylight, and the carriage had stopped at the minister’s door. Oh, how the snow was piled up! way to the tops of the fences, and all the trees were bending under its weight; every little bush was wreathed with it; the tops of the barns, and sheds, and houses, were covered with it; and great long icicles, like big sticks of rock candy, were hanging from the eaves. I liked it most as well as the pretty stars; I was glad I had seen them and the soft white snow.
“Then the minister, and his wife and boys came out, and we went in with them to a bright fire, and the coachman put up his horses in the barn, and went into the kitchen into the big chimney-corner, to thaw his cold fingers. They gave me some warm milk, and my mother some hot coffee, and then the grown people talked and talked great big words, and I ran about the room to see what I could see.”
“What did you see?”