New-Year's night again, and bitter cold.

When I forced myself away from my fire before dark, and ran down to
the stable to see about feeding and bedding the horses and cows,
every beast had its head drawn in towards its shoulders, and
looked at me with the dismal air of saying, "Who is tempering the
wind now?" The dogs in the kennel, with their noses between their
hind-legs, were shivering under their blankets and straw like
a nest of chilled young birds. The fowls on the roost were mere
white and blue puffs of feathers. Nature alone has the making of
her creatures; why doesn't she make them comfortable?

After supper old Jack and Dilsy came in, and standing against the
wall with their arms folded, told me more of what happened after I
got sick. That was about the middle of September, and it is only
two weeks since I became well enough to go in and out through all
sorts of weather.

It was the middle of September then, my servants said, and as within
a week after taking the fever I was very ill, a great many people
came out to inquire for me. Some of these, walking around the
garden, declared it was a pity for such fruit and flowers to be
wasted, and so helped themselves freely every time. The old doctor,
who always fears for my health at this season, stopped by nearly
every day to repeat how he had warned me, and always walked back to
his gig in a round-about way, which required him to pass a favorite
tree; and once he was so indignant to find several other persons
gathered there, and mournfully enjoying the last of the fruit as
they predicted I would never get well, that he came back to the