the thermometer had *ped to 18 degrees below zero, but still chose to sleep in the porch as usual. in the *ning, the most familiar sight to me would be stars in the sky. though they were a mere sprinkle of twinkling dots, yet i had become so accustomed to them that their occasional absence would bring me loneliness and ennui.
it had been snowing all night, not a single star in sight. my roommate and i, each wrapped in a quilt, were seated far apart in a different corner of the porch, facing each other and chatting away.
she exclaimed pointing to something afar, “look, venus in rising!” i looked up and saw nothing but a lamp round the bend in a mountain path. i beamed and said pointing to a tiny lamplight on the opposite mountain, “it’s jupiter over there!”
* and * lights came into sight as we kept pointing here and there. lights from hurricane lamps flickering about in the pine forest *d the scene of a star-studded sky. with the distinction between sky and forest obscured by snowflakes, the numerous lamp-lights now easily passed for as many stars.
completely lost in a make-beli* world, i seemed to see all the lamplights drifting from the ground. with the illusory stars hanging still overhead, i was spared the effort of tracing their positions when i woke up from my dreams in the dead of night.
thus i found consolation *n on a lonely snowy night !
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