Next morning, she rose earlier than usual, while the schoolmaster was
still fast bound in sleep. She stayed only to start her kitchen fire,
and then stood motionless a moment for a last decision. The great white
day was beginning outside with slow, unconscious royalty. The pale
winter dawn yielded to a flush of rose; nothing in the aspect of the
heavens contradicted the promise of the night before. It seemed to her a
wonderful day, dramatic, visible in peace, because, on that morning, all
the world was thinking of the world and not of individual desires. She
went to the bureau drawer in the sitting-room and looked, a little
scornfully, at two packages hidden there. Handkerchiefs for the
schoolmaster, stockings and gloves for Solon! Shutting the drawer, she
hurried out into the kitchen, snatching her scissors from the
work-basket by the way. She gave herself no time to think, but went up
to her flower-stand and began to cut the geranium blossoms and the rose.
The fuchsias hung in flaunting grace. They were dearer to her than all.
She snipped them recklessly, and because the bunch seemed meagre still,
broke the top from her sweet-scented geranium and disposed the flowers
hastily in the midst. Her posy was sweet-smelling and good; it spoke to
the heart. Putting a shawl over her head, she rolled the flowers in her
apron from the frost, and stepped out into the brilliant day. The little
cross-track between her house and the other was snowed up; but she took
the road and, hurrying between banks of carven whiteness, went up
Solon's path to the side door. She walked in upon him where he was
standing over the kitchen stove, warming his hands at the first blaze.
Susan's cheeks were red with the challenge of the stinging air, but she
had the look of one who, living by a larger law, has banished the
foolishness of fear. She walked straight up to him and proffered him her
flowers.

"Here, Solon," she said, "it's Christmas. I brought you these."

Solon looked at her and at them, in slow surprise. He put out both hands
and took them awkwardly.

"Well!" he said. "Well!"

Susan was smiling at him. It seemed to her at that moment that the world
was a very rich place, because you may take all you want and give all
you choose, while nobody is the wiser.

"Well," remarked Solon again, "I guess I'll put 'em into water." He laid
them down on a chair. "Susan, do you remember that time I walked over to
Pine Hill to pick you some mayflo