Who could sleep on a night like this?
So in the dining room she had lighted a fire, and sat on the ground before it, turning the roaster-cakes that lay on the coals to bake.

It would save work in the morning; and she blew out the light because the wind through the window-chinks made it flicker and run; and she sat singing to herself as she watched the cakes.

They lay at one end of the wide hearth on a bed of coals, and at the other end a fire burnt up steadily, casting its amber glow over Em's light hair and black dress, with the ruffle of crepe about the neck, and over the white curls of the sheepskin on which she sat.
Louder and more fiercely yet howled the storm; but Em sang on, and heard nothing but the words of her song, and heard them only faintly, as something restful.

It was an old, childish song she had often heard her mother sing long ago: Where the reeds dance by the river, Where the willow's song is said, On the face of the morning water, Is reflected a white flower's head.
She folded her hands and sang the next verse dreamily: Where the reeds shake by the river, Where the moonlight's sheen is shed, On the face of the sleeping water, Two leaves of a white flower float dead.
Dead, Dead, Dead! She echoed the refrain softly till it died away, and then repeated it.
It was as if, unknown to herself, it harmonized with the pictures and thoughts that sat with her there alone in the firelight.

She turned the cakes over, while the wind hurled down a row of bricks from the gable, and made the walls tremble.
Presently she paused and listened; there was a sound as of something knocking at the back-doorway.