every-day life. What had transfigured him so completely? Was it his
woman's costume with frizzed-out hair, or was it that radiant smile
which he so rarely wore, and which at this moment illumined his face?

"But Sonia is quite unlike herself, and yet she is herself," thought
Nicolas on his side, looking down at the sweet little face in the
moonlight. He slipped his arms under the fur cloak that wrapped her, and
drew her to him, and he kissed her lips, which still tasted of the
burned cork that had blackened her mustache.

"Nicolas--Sonia," they whispered; and Sonia put her little hands round
his face. Then, hand in hand, they ran to the barn and back, and each
went in by the different doors they had come out of.

Natacha, who had noted everything, managed so that she, Mme. Schoss, and
Dimmler should return in one sleigh, while the maids went with Nicolas
and Sonia in another. Nicolas was in no hurry to get home; he could not
help looking at Sonia and trying to find under her disguise the true
Sonia--his Sonia, from whom nothing now could ever part him. The magical
effects of moonlight, the remembrance of that kiss on her sweet lips,
the dizzy flight of the snow-clad ground under the horses' hoofs, the
black sky, studded with diamonds, that bent over their heads, the icy
air that seemed to give vigor to his lungs--all was enough to make him
fancy that they were transported to a land of magic.

"Sonia, are you not cold?"

"No; and you?"

Nicolas pulled up, and giving the reins to a man to drive, he ran back