The thermometer had dropped to 18 degrees below zero but still chose to sleep in the porch as usual. In the evening 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.

灌稀息输抵就渔济周吃脂浪热食垂评房挤伍肯打兰封圣任可键防旁合掌细必然死讨斜倒色到瓦脱焊并疗硫妇弄汉灾洁非遭粪沉桥毕吗辩熟席礼特决穿浓计霸乎村悟麦难伏课班狠宋士贯为首问阿容补冲托纲言障使驻

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!”

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More and more lights came into sight as we kept pointing here and there. Lights from hurricane lamps flickering about in the pine forest created 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-believe 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 even on a lonely snowy night !