The room was heated to express the geniality that was harder to put in words.  The window was shut; there was a smell of varnish and whatever was inside the “suite” of which Mrs Crow occupied the sofa.  Enlarged photographs —­very much enlarged—­of Mr and Mrs Crow hung upon the walls, and one other of a young girl done in that process which tells you at once that she was an only daughter and that she is dead.  There had been other bereavements; they were written upon the silver coffin-plates which, framed and glazed, also contributed to the decoration of the room; but you would have had to look close, and you might feel a delicacy.

Mrs Crow made her greetings with precision, and sat down again upon the sofa for a few minutes’ conversation.

“I’m telling them,” said her husband, “that the sleighin’s just held out for them.  If it ’ud been tomorrow they’d have had to come on wheels.  Pretty soft travellin’ as it was, some places, I guess.”

“Snow’s come early this year,” said Mrs Crow.  “It was an open fall, too.”

“It has certainly,” Mr Farquharson backed her up.  “About as early as I remember it.  I don’t know how much you got out here; we had a good foot in Elgin.”

“’Bout the same, ’bout the same,” Mr Crow deliberated, “but it’s been layin’ light all along over Clayfield way—­ain’t had a pair of runners out, them folks.”

“Makes a more cheerful winter, Mrs Crow, don’t you think, when it comes early?” remarked Lorne.  “Or would you rather not get it till after Christmas?”

“I don’t know as it matters much, out here in the country.  We don’t get a great many folks passin’, best of times.  An’ it’s more of a job to take care of the stock.”

“That’s so,” Mr Crow told them.  “Chores come heavier when there’s snow on the ground, a great sight, especially if there’s drifts.”

And for an instant, with his knotted hands hanging between his knees he pondered this unvarying aspect of his yearly experience.  They all pondered it, sympathetic.

“Well, now, Mr Farquharson,” Mrs Crow turned to him.  “An’ how reely be ye?  We’ve heard better, an’ worse, an’ middlin’—­there’s ben such contradictory reports.”

“Oh, very well, Mrs Crow.  Never better.  I’m going to give a lot more trouble yet.  I can’t do it in politics, that’s the worst of it.  But here’s the man that’s going to do it for me.  Here’s the man!”

The Crows looked at the pretendant, as in duty bound, but not any longer than they could help.

“Why, I guess you were at school with Elmore?” said Crow, as if the idea had just struck him.

“He may be right peart, for all that,” said Elmore’s mother, and Elmore, himself, entering with two leading Liberals of Jordanville, effected a diversion, under cover of which Mrs Crow escaped, to superintend, with Bella, the last touches to the supper in the kitchen.