CHAPTER IX 

LETTIE COMES OF AGE 

Lettie was twenty-one on the day after Christmas. She woke me in the morning with cries of dismay. There was a great fall of snow, multiplying the cold morning light, startling the slow-footed twilight. The lake was black like the open eyes of a corpse; the woods were black like the beard on the face of a corpse. A rabbit bobbed out, and floundered in much consternation; little birds settled into the depth, and rose in a dusty whirr, much terrified at the universal treachery of the earth. The snow was eighteen inches deep, and drifted in places. 

"They will never come!" lamented Lettie, for it was the day of her party. 

"At any rate—Leslie will," said I. 

"One!" she exclaimed. 

"That one is all, isn't it?" said I. "And for sure George will come, though I've not seen him this fortnight. He's not been in one night, they say, for a fortnight." 

"Why not?" 

"I cannot say." 

Lettie went away to ask Rebecca for the fiftieth time if she thought they would come. At any rate the extra woman-help came. 

It was not more than ten o'clock when Leslie arrived, ruddy, with shining eyes, laughing like a boy. There was much stamping in the porch, and knocking of leggings with his stick, and crying of Lettie from the kitchen to know who had come, and loud, cheery answers from the porch bidding her come and see. She came, and greeted him with effusion. 

"Ha, my little woman!" he said kissing her. "I declare you are a woman. Look at yourself in the glass now——" She did so—"What do you see?" he asked laughing. 
What was the time when Leslie showed up?
It was not more than ten o'clock when Leslie arrived, r