“Mother, there’s a great storm brewing, if I’m not mistaken.  The child ought not to have gone.”

Then the mother came and anxiously inspected the sky, although she only said: 

“Oh well, she is young, and don’t mind the weather like us old folks.  I was only twenty years old myself, once, and I remember just how tired I used to get cooped up in the house so much; besides, she wanted to go to the post-office.  To-morrow is Christmas, you know, and the office will not be open but an hour or two.”

Mr. Winters was growing old, and the rheumatism was keeping him a prisoner just now, so he came back to the fire and his newspaper.

The little city wherein was the post-office lay a little over two miles away, and Edna often walked in and out for the mere pleasure of it.  Even on this dismal day she tripped lightly along, humming a glad measure, stopping a moment in the edge of the pine woods to gather a few squaw-berries and a bit of moss; then, casting a glance at the threatening sky, hurried on her way.  Before she reached the town the snow was falling thick and fast, and was blown by the wind into little mounds almost as soon as it came down.  She was fairly blown inside the door of the post-office, feathery flakes adorning her from head to foot.

Mr. Hugh Monteith had also come to the post-office.  He had merely stepped across the street from his banking-house, and stood waiting for the afternoon mail to be distributed.  He turned his head carelessly as the door opened to admit Edna.  She took off the veil that enveloped her head, shook and brushed herself, and walked over to the stove.  Then Mr. Monteith’s inner consciousness told him that there was the very face he had been in search of for years.  Then he did what was not found in his code of etiquette—­he stared, although he did retreat behind a pillar while doing so.  He took in the whole picture.  The face, of that pure, clear tint that belongs only to a certain type of brown eyes and hair, the hair gathered into a coil at the back of the head, except one or two loose curls that strayed down from it, the eyes sweet and serious.  Mr. Monteith dealt many hours of the day with dollars and cents, notes and bills; still, he knew poetry when he saw it, and that golden-brown curl was to him a bit of a poem.  Then her dress was peculiar; his fastidious taste pronounced it perfect for the occasion:  walking-dress of soft, dark brown, glinted by a lighter shade of the same colour; a jaunty brown jacket of substantial cloth, a little brown hat, with a brown and white wing perked on one side of it; no colour, except a soft pink that the cold air had laid on the cheeks with delicate skill.  His quick eye noted too, the neat glove, the well-fitting little boot poised on the hearth of the stove.  She looked like a little brown thrush about to spread its wings; but she did not fly, she walked over to the delivery and received a package of letters and papers, asking in low, clear tones, “Is the Eastern mail in?” The voice was in keeping with eyes, and hair, and dress—­pure, refined, cultured.