When the Yule Log Burns




I

Kindlings


Polly, the Doctor's old white mare, plodded slowly along the snowy
country road by the picket fence, and turned in at the snow-capped
posts. Ahead, roofed with the ragged ermine of a newly-fallen snow, the
Doctor's old-fashioned house loomed gray-white through the snow-fringed
branches of the trees, a quaint iron lantern, which was picturesque by
day and luminous and cheerful by night, hanging within the square,
white-pillared portico at the side. That the many-paned, old-fashioned
window on the right framed the snow-white head of Aunt Ellen Leslie, the
Doctor's wife, the old Doctor himself was comfortably aware--for his
kindly eyes missed nothing.

He could have told you with a reflective stroke of his grizzled beard
that the snow had stopped but an hour since, and that now through the
white and heavy lacery of branches to the west glowed the flame-gold of
a winter sunset, glinting ruddily over the box-bordered brick walk, the
orchard and the comfortable barn which snugly housed his huddled cattle;