It took argument to establish this point, but the jury was with me from the start; and finally nothing stood between me and a verdict but the fact that she must finish her term of school.  I urged upon her that my house was nearer the school than was McConkey’s, and she could finish it if she chose.  Then she said she didn’t believe it would be legal for Virginia Vandemark to finish a contract signed by Virginia Royall—­and pretty soon I realized that she was making fun of me, and I hugged her and kissed her until she begged my pardon.

And all the time the storm raged.  We finished the food in the dinner pail, and began wondering how long we had been imprisoned, and how hungry we ought to be by this time.  I was not in the least hungry myself; but I began to feel panicky for fear Virginia might be starving to death.  She had a watch, of course, as a teacher; but it had run down long ago, and even if it had not, we could not have lit a match in that place by which to look at it.  Becoming really frightened as the thought of starvation and death from thirst came oftener and oftener into my mind, I dug my way to the opening of the burrow, and found it black night, and the snow still sweeping over the land; but there was hope in the fact that I could see one or two bright stars overhead.  The gale was abating; and I went back with this word, and a basket of snow in lieu of water.

Whether it was the first night out or the second, I did not know, and this offered ground for argument.  Virginia said that we had lived through so much that it had probably made the time seem longer than it was; but I argued that the time of holding her in my arms, kissing her, telling her how much I loved her, and persuading her to marry me as soon as we could get to Elder Thorndyke’s, made it seem shorter—­and this led to more efforts to make the time pass away.  Finally, I dug out again, just as we both were really and truly hungry, and went back after Virginia.  I made her wrap up warmly, and we crawled out, covered with chaff, rumpled, mussed up, but safe and happy; and found the sun shining over a landscape of sparkling frost, with sun-dogs in the sky and millions of bright needles of frost in the air, and a light breeze still blowing from the northwest, so bitingly cold that a finger or cheek was nipped by it in a moment’s exposure.  And within forty rods of us was the farmstead of Amos Bemisdarfer; who stood looking at us in amazement as we came across the rippled surface of the snow to his back door.

“I kess,” said Amos, “it mus’ have peen your team I put in de parn lass night.  Come in.  Preckfuss is retty.”

* * * * *

I left it to Virginia—­she had been so sensible and wise in all her words since we had agreed to be married at once—­to tell the elder and Grandma Thorndyke about it.  But she went to pieces when she tried it.  She ran into their little front room where the elder was working on a sermon, pulling grandma out of the kitchen by the hand.