lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane—the howling darkness—and stood before me; the cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in consternation; so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up vale that night.
"Any ill news?" I demanded. "Has anything happened?"
"No. How very easily alarmed you are!" he answered, removing his cloak and hanging it up against the door: towards which he again coolly pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his boots.
"I shall sully the purity of your floor;" said he, "but you must excuse me for once." Then he approached the fire: "I have had hard work to get here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame. "One drift took me up to the waist: happily the snow is quite soft yet."
"But why are you come?" I could not forbear saying.
"Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask it, I answer, simply to have a little talk with you: I got tired of my mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday, I have experienced the excite-
