Anna Chapin Ray

“ And Rob, in the growing darkness, had smiled to himself, as he had recalled the dainty remoteness, only a year before, of that same little gray fur coat.
Just outside the toll-gate, the horses broke their trot and fell to plodding soberly along. An instant later, however, they shied violently. From out the darkening landscape, a vision had sprung up from beneath their very feet, a vision whose stiff black hat was bound to his head with a knotted handkerchief, and who pried himself to his feet by means of a snowshoe in each mittened hand. ”

“ Once, however, he broke the silence and gave tongue to the stars.
"It's quite my own idea," he assured an imaginary audience. "A fellow's hat comes off in the drifts, and it's no end of a fuss to get down and pick it up. Once it's tied on, you see, there's no more trouble."
And so it was that, intoxicated with ozone and cold and suppressed hilarity, Rob Argyle, coming up the stairs, was in a frame of mind to forget his feuds and all similar concerns and share his overflowing jollity with whomsoever he might meet. And, as it chanced, he met Janet just at the head of the stairs. ”

“ This time, Day stared at him in unmixed astonishment Could it be that Sir George Porteous was losing that minus quantity, his wits?
"Why shouldn't we be together?" she demanded, so shortly that Sir George Porteous dodged at the question as at a physical blow.
"No reason," he reassured her; "no reason at all. It's all right, you know. I only thought it a bit strange, when you're the only two friends I have in the city, that you should happen to be friends of each other, too."
Day hunted for her handkerchief. Rob's own voice was so unsteady as to drive him to seek the briefest possible words. ”