No one spoke during the drive, and they glided swiftly through the snowy town. 'Tilda Jane had a confused vision of lighted shops with frosty windows, of houses with more sober illuminations, then suddenly they were stealing along the brink of a long and narrow snow-filled hollow. This was the Ciscasset River, still held by its winter covering. She thought she heard a murmur of "rotten ice" behind her as the lumber merchant addressed his son, and she was enough a child of the State to know that a reference to the breaking up of the ice in the river was intended.