"You ought to have made the fire burn afresh."
"I tried to," he replied, with significant emphasis, "but I failed."
"Really!" she says, laughing archly in the midst of her vexation; "you must have tried very awkwardly. If I am not mistaken, there are embers enough under the ashes to set Rome on fire. I should like to see."
She kneels upon the hearth, scrapes together the embers, and with great skill and precision piles three logs of wood on top of them. One minute later the wood is burning with a clear flame.
"Jack!" she calls, very gently.
He starts, and looks round.
"Jack, is the fire burning brightly enough for you now?" she asks.
As in a dream he approaches her.
"Now sit down," she says, in a tone of gay command, pulling forward a large, comfortable arm-chair, "and warm yourself."
He obeys, looking down at her half in surprise, half in tenderness, as she kneels beside him, slender, graceful, wonderfully fair to see, with the reflection from the fire crimsoning her cheeks and lending a golden lustre to her light-brown hair.