"It is a joy, I admit, and a thousand times better than being a summer girl at a noisy watering-place."
"What is a summer girl?" she asked with a smile, but I was not smiling. I was pessimistic.
"A sleepy-headed female with trunks full of soiled clothes! That's what I always am when I get back from a trip."
"Of course the winters here are dull." She had picked up her tablet and was writing her initials over and over again on the back.
"They are. Dull gray," I agreed. "The days are a weary succession of that uninteresting color; but, dreary as they are, you want them to last. When the daylight is fading and night coming on, but while it is still too early to light the lamps—then is the worst time of all! There is no sound on earth save a few lonely little calf bleats from down in the lot, until the woodchop echoes begin—and they are lonelier still."
"It's awful, I know!"
"Do you know what I do on such nights as this? I get out my opera-glasses and long gloves and a lace handkerchief, and lay them on my table as if I were about to dress for a beautiful opera. Then I read Aux Italiens; think a while—and go to bed."
"Poor child!"
"I used never to feel this way," I kept on. "Always—until lately—I have loved winter. It has meant only great roaring fires and barrels of apples. Even the absorbing books which used always to accompany the apples and big fires are not absorbing any more."
"Of course not. A girl with as much go in her as you have needs to lose herself entirely in something."