"Hurry, Gusta!" said Elizabeth. "This is splendid! I must go right out!"
The maid who was laying the breakfast smiled; "It was a regular blizzard, Miss Elizabeth."
"Was it?" Elizabeth lifted her skirt a little, and rested the toe of her slipper on the low brass fender. The wood was crackling cheerfully. "Has mama gone out?"
"Oh, yes, Miss Elizabeth, an hour ago."
"Of course," Elizabeth said, glancing at the little clock on the mantelpiece, ticking in its refined way. Its hands pointed to half-past ten. "I quite forgot the dinner." Her brow clouded. "What a bore!" she thought. Then she said aloud: "Didn't mama leave any word?"
"She said not to disturb you, Miss Elizabeth."
Gusta had served the breakfast, and now, surveying her work with an expression of pleasure, poured the coffee.
Beside Elizabeth's plate lay the mail and a morning newspaper. The newspaper had evidently been read at some earlier breakfast, and because it was rumpled Elizabeth pushed it aside. She read her letters while she ate her breakfast, and then, when she laid her napkin aside, she looked out of the windows again.
"I must go out for a long walk," she said, speaking as much to herself as to the maid, though not in the same eager tone she had found for her resolution a while before. "It must have snowed very hard. It wasn't snowing when I came home."
"It began at midnight, Miss Elizabeth," said Gusta, "and it snowed so hard I had an awful time getting here this morning. I could hardly find my way, it fell so thick and fast."