A cutter, mounting the road from the village, passed them by in a joyous flutter of bells, and they straightened themselves and looked ahead with rigid faces. Along the main street lights had begun to shine from the house-fronts and stray figures were turning in here and there at the gates. Ethan, with a touch of his whip, roused the sorrel to a languid trot.
As they drew near the end of the village the cries of children reached them, and they saw a knot of boys, with sleds behind them, scattering across the open space before the church.
"I guess this'll be their last coast for a day or two," Ethan said, looking up at the mild sky.
Mattie was silent, and he added: "We were to have gone down last night."
Still she did not speak and, prompted by an obscure desire to help himself and her through their miserable last hour, he went on discursively : "Ain't it funny we haven't been down together but just that once last winter?"
She answered: "It wasn't often I got down to the village."
"That's so," he said.
They had reached the crest of the Corbury
