She looked at the uncurtained window and to her amazement saw that, from bottom to top, it was masked with snow. It looked as though the drift was higher than the very top of the window!
Was it still snowing, or had the storm ceased? Not a sound came from without; nor could she detect a sound within the house.
There was no clock in the room and Dorothy’s own watch was in the kitchen where she had left her clothing. She stirred about to gain an easier position, and the little body of Celia Moran uncurled.
“Oh! oh! Tom—Dorothy——”
The murmur of the child’s voice served to wake Dorothy properly. Celia was dreaming—of Dorothy herself, and of her lost brother. The older girl kissed her, laid her touseled head upon the pillow, and then crept out of the warm feathers into the cold, cold room.
There was a matchbox on the mantel behind the small sheet-iron stove. With chattering teeth the Glenwood girl reached the matches, stooped by the door of the stove, scratched the lucifer, and ignited the shavings and corncobs which made sufficient kindling in the firebox to set off the hardwood sticks piled in above the tinder.
The fire began to roar almost instantly. She darted back across the icy floor and crept again into bed. Whether it was morning, or not, Dorothy determined to have a fire and somehow kill the deadly chill of that guest room.
Celia still slept. The yellow light of the fire began to send dancing reflections upon the ceiling through the perforated draft of the stove. Dorothy lay there and listened to the fire’s roar; but there was no other sound in the house for some time.
The atmosphere of the room perceptibly changed. There was a little blue haze in the air and the smell of burning varnish, for the careful Mrs. Hogan had painted the stove to keep it from rusting and perhaps this was the first time it had been used during the winter.
By and by Dorothy heard the creak of the stair under the heavy tread of the farm woman. It must, the schoolgirl judged, be time to rise; yet the snow drift kept out the morning light.