"My own what? Stockings?"
"Snow-boots."
"Worn out, Mr. Rossitur! I have run them to death, poor things. Is that a slight intimation that you are afraid of the same fate for your socks?"
"No," said Hugh, smiling in spite of himself at her manner,--"I will lend you anything I have got, Fleda."
His tone put Fleda in mind of the very doubtful pretensions of the socks in question to be comprehended under the term; she was silent a minute.
"Will you go with me, Hugh?"
"No dear, I can't;--I must get a little ahead with the wood while I can; it looks as if it would snow again; and Barby isn't provided for more than a day or two."
"And how for this fire?"
Hugh shook his head, and rose up to go forth into the kitchen. Fleda went too, linking her arm in his and bearing affectionately upon it, a sort of tacit saying that they would sink or swim together. Hugh understood it perfectly.
"I am very sorry you have to do it, dear Hugh--Oh that wood-shed!--If it had only been made!--"