some vanishing
firelight at an hour like this, with deep rest near them side by side!

He lingered over the first time he had ever seen her; that memorable
twilight in the town, the roofs and chimneys of the houses, half-white,
half-brown with melting snow, outlined against the low red sunset sky.
He had not long before left the room in the university where his trial
had taken place, and where he had learned that it was all over with
him. He was passing along one of the narrow cross streets, when at a
certain point his course was barred by a heap of fresh cedar boughs,
just thrown out of a wagon. Some children were gay and busy, carrying
them through the side doors, the sexton aiding. Other children inside
the lighted church were practising a carol to organ music; the choir of
their voices swelled out through the open doors, and some of the little
ones, tugging at the cedar, took up the strain.

She was standing on the low steps of the church, in charge of the
children. In one hand she held an unfinished wreath, and she was
binding the dark, shining leaves with the other. A swarm of snowflakes,
scarce more than glittering crystals, danced merrily about her head and
flecked her black fur on one shoulder. As David, not very mindful just
then of whither he was going, stepped forward across the light and
paused before the pile of cedar boughs, she glanced at him with a
smile, seeing how his path was barred. Then she said to them:--

"Hurry, children! The night comes when we cannot work!"

It was an hour of such good-will on earth to men that no one could seem
a stranger to her. He instantly became a human brother, next of kin to
her--that was all; she was wholly under the influence of the innocence
and purity within and without.

As he made no reply and for a moment did not move, she glanced quickly
at him, regretting the smile. When she saw his face, he saw the joy go
down out of hers; and he felt, as he turned off, that she went with him
along the black street: alone, he seemed not alone any more.

Though he had been with her many times since, no later impression had
effaced one line of that first picture. There she stood ever to him,
and would stand: on the step of the church, smiling in her mourning,
binding her wreath, the jets of the chandelier streaming out on her
snow-sprinkled shoulder, the children carolling among the fragrant
cedar boughs scattered at her feet; she there, decorating the church,
happy to be