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.
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