Immediately after supper, Claude put the two wiry little blacks, Pompey and Satan, to the sleigh.  The moon had been up since long before the sun went down, had been hanging pale in the sky most of the afternoon, and now it flooded the snow-terraced land with silver.  It was one of those sparkling winter nights when a boy feels that though the world is very big, he himself is bigger; that under the whole crystalline blue sky there is no one quite so warm and sentient as himself, and that all this magnificence is for him.  The sleighbells rang out with a kind of musical lightheartedness, as if they were glad to sing again, after the many winters they had hung rusty and dustchoked in the barn.

The mill road, that led off the highway and down to the river, had pleasant associations for Claude.  When he was a youngster, every time his father went to mill, he begged to go along.  He liked the mill and the miller and the miller’s little girl.  He had never liked the miller’s house, however, and he was afraid of Enid’s mother.  Even now, as he tied his horses to the long hitch-bar down by the engine room, he resolved that he would not be persuaded to enter that formal parlour, full of new-looking, expensive furniture, where his energy always deserted him and he could never think of anything to talk about.  If he moved, his shoes squeaked in the silence, and Mrs. Royce sat and blinked her sharp little eyes at him, and the longer he stayed, the harder it was to go.

Enid herself came to the door.

“Why, it’s Claude!” she exclaimed.  “Won’t you come in?”

“No, I want you to go riding.  I’ve got the old sleigh out.  Come on, it’s a fine night!”

“I thought I heard bells.  Won’t you come in and see Mother while I get my things on?”

Claude said he must stay with his horses, and ran back to the hitch-bar.  Enid didn’t keep him waiting long; she wasn’t that kind.  She came swiftly down the path and through the front gate in the Maine seal motor-coat she wore when she drove her coupe in cold weather.

“Now, which way?” Claude asked as the horses sprang forward and the bells began to jingle.

“Almost any way.  What a beautiful night!  And I love your bells, Claude.  I haven’t heard sleighbells since you used to bring me and Gladys home from school in stormy weather.  Why don’t we stop for her tonight?  She has furs now, you know!” Here Enid laughed.  “All the old ladies are so terribly puzzled about them; they can’t find out whether your brother really gave them to her for Christmas or not.  If they were sure she bought them for herself, I believe they’d hold a public meeting.”

Claude cracked his whip over his eager little blacks.  “Doesn’t it make you tired, the way they are always nagging at Gladys?”

“It would, if she minded.  But she’s just as serene!  They must have something to fuss about, and of course poor Mrs. Farmer’s back taxes are piling up.  I certainly suspect Bayliss of the furs.”