if we went, whether we should be able to get back. The dispute
waxed. Daphne and Jill insisted that go we must, could, and
should. I rather supported them. Berry and Jonah opposed us;
the latter quietly, as is his wont, the former with a simple
stream of provoking irony. At length:

"Very well, ghouls," said Berry, "have your most wicked way.
Doubtless the good monks of the Hospice will find my corpse. I
wish the drinking-trough, which will be erected to my memory, to
stand half-way up St.James's Street. How strange it will sound
in future."

"What'll sound?" said Jill. "The new Saint's Day, dear-
Berrymas."

When order had been restored, Jonah suggested that we should
adjourn the debate till the next morning, in case it stopped
snowing during the night. As it was nearly one, the idea seemed
a good one, and we went to bed.



The morning was bright and cloudless. The cold was intense, but
the sun glorious, while the clear blue sky looked as if it had
never heard of snow. In a word, the weather was now magnificent,
and, but for the real evidence Upon the country-side, no one
would ever have believed such a cheery, good-natured fellow
guilty of a raging blizzard. But the snow lay thick upon the
ground, and it was freezing hard.