The thaw continued till the snow was nearly gone. Only the great drifts against the fences, and the white folds in the rifts of distant hillsides lingered to tell what had been. Then came a day of warm rain, that washed away the last fragment of earth's cast-off vesture, and bathed her pure for the new adornment that was to be laid upon her. At night, the weather cooled, and the rain changed to a fine, slow mist, congealing as it fell.
Faith stood next morning by a small round table in the sitting-room window, and leaned lovingly over her jonquils and hyacinths that were coming into bloom. Then, drawing the curtain cord to let in the first sunbeam that should slant from the south upon her bulbs, she gave a little cry of rapturous astonishment. It was a diamond morning!
Away off, up the lane, and over the meadows, every tree and bush was hung with twinkling gems that the slight wind swayed against each other with tiny crashes of faint music, and the sun was just touching with a level splendor.
After that first, quick cry, Faith stood mute with ecstasy.
"Mother!" said she, breathlessly, at last, as Mrs. Gartney entered, "look there! have you seen it? Just imagine what the woods must be this morning! How can we think of buckwheats?"
Sounds and odors betrayed that Mis' Battis and breakfast were in the little room adjoining.
"There is a thought of something akin to them, isn't there, under all this splendor? Men must live, and grass and grain must grow."
Mr. Gartney said this, as he came up behind wife and daughter, and laid a hand on a shoulder of each.
"I know one thing, though," said Faith. "I'll eat the buckwheats, as a vulgar necessity, and then I'll go over the brook and up in the woods behind the Pasture Rocks. It'll last, won't it?"
"Not many hours, with this spring balm in the air," replied her father. "You must make haste. By noon, it will be all a drizzle."