If we are cold, remember, slap your body with your hands the way the foresters do, and then you’ll feel warmer.”

“Yes, Conrad,” said the little thing.

Sanna was not disheartened at not being able to go down the mountain and run home, as he might have expected, for the severe strain—the children had not realized how heavy it was—made it seem good to sit down, inexpressibly good, and they gladly gave in to their weariness.

But now hunger too made itself felt. At almost the same instant, they took out their pieces of bread and ate them. They ate the other things too, bits of cake, almonds and nuts and little things their grandmother had slipped into their pockets.

“Now, Sanna, we must get the snow off us,” said the lad, “so we’ll not be wet.”

“Yes, Conrad,” answered Sanna.

They went out in front of their little house, and Conrad first got the snow off his sister. He shook her things by the corners, removed his hat that he had put on her and emptied it of snow and brushed off with a kerchief the snow that was left. Then he got off, as best he could, the snow collected on himself.

It had stopped snowing altogether by this time.

The children felt not a flake.

They went back into the stone house and sat down. Getting up had shown them how tired they really were, and they readily sat down again. Conrad took off his calfskin bag. He got out the cloth that had been wrapped by his grandmother around the cardboard box and paper-covered packages, and laid it about his shoulders for warmth. He also took the two rolls from the bag and gave them to Sanna. The child ate eagerly,—one and then part of the second. But the rest she gave back to Conrad when she saw that he was not eating. He took it and ate it.

Then both sat and gazed straight ahead.

As far as they could see in the dusk, glimmering snow lay upon everything, separate tiny facets scintillating curiously here and there as if, after absorbing the light all day, they were now reflecting it again.

Darkness fell with the suddenness usual in high altitudes. Soon it was dark all around; only the snow continued to shine with its pallid glimmer. Not only had it stopped snowing but the obscuring mist had begun to lift and was parting here and there, for the children caught the twinkle of a little star. Since the snow shed an actual radiance, as it were, and a veil no longer hung from the clouds, they could see from their refuge the mounds of snow sharply silhouetted against the sombre sky. As it was much warmer in the hut than it had been elsewhere, they rested huddling close against each other, and even forgot to be afraid of the dark. Soon the stars came out in greater numbers, one here, one there, until it seemed not a cloud was left in the sky.

It was the moment when people in the valleys were lighting candles. At first but one is lit and placed on the table to light the room, or just a pine-splinter or a fire in the hearth, and a brightness from all the windows where the family is gathered shines out into the snowy night but on this evening above all—Holy Night—there would be many more lights to shine upon the presents lying spread on tables for the children, or hanging from Christmas trees; countless numbers would be lit, since in every house, every cot, every room, there were one or more children for whom the Christ-child would have brought something on which the candles must shine. The lad had expected they would soon be down off the mountain, yet of all the many lights in the valley that night, not a candle-beam made its way up to them; they looked out upon nothingness, the blankness of the snow, the sombre sky; everything else was lost in impenetrable distance. At this hour, in all the valleys, children were receiving gifts from the Christ-child; only these two sat alone by the glacier; and the finest gifts they might have received were lying in little sealed packages in the calfskin bag at the back of their shelter.

The cloudbanks had dropped behind the mountains on every side and bending low about the children, the arch of heaven was an even blue, so dark it was almost black, spangled with stars blazing in countless array, and through their midst a broad luminous band was woven, pale as milk, which the children had indeed seen from the valley, but never before so distinctly. The night was progressing. The children did not know that the stars move westward and on, otherwise it might have been possible for them to tell the hour of night, as new stars appeared and others vanished; they, however, supposed them to be the same ones. The ground all about lay bright in the starlight but they saw no valley, nothing familiar; nothing was to be seen anywhere but whiteness—all was pure white. Only a sombre horn, a sombre head, a sombre arm, was discernible, looming up at this point or that from the shimmering waste. The moon was nowhere to be seen; perhaps it had gone down early with the sun or not risen at all.

After a great while Conrad said: “Sanna, you mustn’t go to sleep; you know what Father said, ‘if you fall asleep in the mountains you’re sure to freeze,’ the way the old ash-woodsman went to sleep and was dead on a stone four long months and not a soul knew where he was.”

“No, I’ll not go to sleep,” the little thing answered wearily.

Conrad had shaken her by the hem of her frock to rouse her and make her listen.

Then silence again.

Presently the lad was conscious of a gentle pressure on his arm, that grew heavier and heavier. Sanna had fallen asleep and settled down on him.

“Sanna, don’t go to sleep, please don’t,” he said.

“No,” she murmured drowsily. “I’m not asleep.”

He moved a little away from her to rouse her, but she just dropped over and would have gone on sleeping on the ground. He grasped her shoulder and shook her. Although his motions were somewhat brisker he found he was cold and that his arm was numb. He was alarmed and jumped up.