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“Suppose we could give a Christmas dinner,–what should we have?”

“We’d have oxen roasted whole, an’ honey–an’–but that’s as fur as I can git.”

The schoolmaster had a treasury of which she had never learned, and he said musically:–

… “‘a heap
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
And lucid syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d
From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.'”

“Yes, that has a real nice sound. It ain’t like the Bible, but it’s nice.”

They sat and dreamed and the fire flared up into living arabesques and burnt blue in corners. A stick parted and fell into ash, and Miss Susan came awake. She had the air of rousing herself with vigor.

“There!” said she, “sometimes I think it’s most sinful to make believe, it’s so hard to wake yourself up. Arter all this, I dunno but when Solon comes for the pigs’ kittle to-morrer, I shall ketch myself sayin’, ‘Here’s the frankincense!'”

They laughed together, and the schoolmaster rose to light his lamp. He paused on his way to the stairs, and came back to set it down again.

“There are lots of people we haven’t provided for,” he said. “We haven’t even thought what we’d give Jenny.”

“I guess Jenny’s got her heart’s desire.” Miss Susan nodded sagely. “I’ve sent her a box, with a fruit-cake an’ pickles and cheese. She’s all fixed out.”

The schoolmaster hesitated, and turned the lamp-wick up and down. Then he spoke, somewhat timidly, “What should you like to give her father?”

Miss Susan’s face clouded with that dreamy look which sometimes settled upon her eyes like haze.

“Well,” said she, “I guess whatever I should give him’d only make him laugh.”

“Flowers–and velvet–and honey–and myrrh?”

“Yes,” answered Miss Susan with gravity. “Perhaps it’s jest as well some things ain’t to be had at the shops.”

The schoolmaster took up his lamp again and walked to the door.

“We never can tell,” he said. “It may be people want things awfully without knowing it. And suppose they do laugh! They’d better laugh than cry. I should give all I could. Good-night.”

Miss Susan banked up the fire and set her rising of dough on the hearth, after a discriminating peep to see whether it was getting on too fast. After that, she covered her plants by the window and blew out the light, so that the moon should have its way. She lingered for a moment, looking out into a glittering world. Not a breath stirred. The visible universe lay asleep, and only beauty waked. She was aching with a tumultuous emotion–the sense that life might be very fair and shining, if we only dared to shape it as it seems to us in dreams. The loveliness and repose of the earth appealed to her like a challenge; they alone made it seem possible for her also to dare.

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.