"All right—we'll step!"
"Who's going to fix the bundles?" Carolyn paused to ask as she started up the stairs.
"Marietta," Guy answered. "I've labeled every one, so it'll be easy. If they hear paper rattle, they'll think it's the usual presents we've sent on, and if they come out they'll see Marietta, so it's all right. Quiet, now. Remember the seventh stair!"
They crept up, one by one, each to his or her old room. There needed to be no "doubling up," for the house was large, and each room had been left precisely as its owner had left it. It was rather ghostly, this stealing silently about with candles, and in the necessity for the suppression of speech the animation of the party rather suffered eclipse. It was late, and they were beginning to be sleepy, so they were soon in bed. But, somehow, once composed for slumber, more than one grew wakeful again.
Guy, lying staring at a patch of wintry moonlight on the odd striped paper of his wall—it had stopped snowing since they had come into the house, and the clouds had broken away, leaving a brilliant sky—discovered his door to be softly opening. The glimmer of a candle filtered through the crack, a voice whispered his name.
"Who is it?" he answered under his breath.
"It's Nan. May I come in?"
"Of course. What's up?"
"Nothing. I wanted to talk a minute." She came noiselessly in, wrapped in a woolly scarlet kimono, scarlet slippers on her feet, her brown braids hanging down her back. The frost-bloom lately on her cheeks had melted into a ruddy glow, her eyes were stars. She set her candle on the little stand, and sat down on the edge of Guy's bed. He raised himself on his elbow and lay looking appreciatively at her.
"This is like old times," he said. "But won't you be cold?"