After the dance, the young folks played old-fashioned games--"Going to Jerusalem" and "Post Office." Anne fled to the settle when the last game was announced. Peggy was moping among the cushions.
The fun was fast and furious. Anne had a little shivery feeling as she watched the girls go out into the hall and come back blushing. How could they give so lightly what seemed to her so sacred? A woman's lips were for her lover.
She sat very still among the cushions. The fire roared up the chimney. Outside the wind blew; far away in the distance a dog barked.
The barking dog was young Toby. At the heels of his master he was headed straight for the long low house and the grateful shelter of its warmth.
Richard stood for a moment on the porch, looking in through the lighted window. A romping game was in full progress. This time it was "Drop the Handkerchief" and a plump and pretty girl was having a tussle with her captor. Everybody was shouting, clapping. Everybody? On an old settle by the fire sat a slim girl in a white gown. Peggy lay in the curve of her arm, and she was looking down at Peggy.
Richard laughed a big laugh. He could not have told why he laughed, but he flung the door open, and stood there radiant.
"May I come in?" he demanded of Beulah, "or will I break up your party?"
"Oh, Dr. Brooks, as if you could. We are so glad to have you."
"I had a sick call, and we are half frozen, Toby and I, and we saw the lights----"
Now the best place for a half-frozen man is by the fire, and the best place for an anxious and shivering dog is in a warm chimney corner, so in a moment the young dog Toby was where he could thaw out in a luxurious content, and Richard was on the settle beside Anne, and was saying, "Isn't this great? Do you think I ought to stay? I'm not really invited, you know."
"There's never any formality. Everybody just comes."
"I like your frock," he said suddenly. "You remind me of a little porcelain figure I saw in a Fifth Avenue window not long ago."
"Tell me about it," she said with eagerness.
"New York and the shops. Oh, I saw them once. They were like--Heaven."
She laughed up at him as she said it, and he laughed back.
"You'd get tired of them if you lived there."
"I should never get tired. And if I had money I'd go on in and try on everything. I saw a picture of a gown I'd like--all silver spangles with a pointed train. Do you know I've never worn a train? I should like one--and a big fan with feathers."