“We may be in for a long spell of frost,” said Anne, but, reminded of his duties, her father was not in the mood to be consoled. “A frost brings more suffering than you or I can quite realize, my dear,” he said severely. “Think of the poor, without the coal or the blankets to keep them warm; think of the seamen in the rigging of ships; think of the outcasts on the roads; think of the birds.”
“Think of the polar bears,” said Anne under her breath, as her father rose from the table and scooped out the crumb of the loaf.
“The trap ought to be here in ten minutes; I shall be back from Ely by the eight o’clock train,” he said, and with these words went to the front door where an impatient flock of sparrows was waiting his arrival.
When the trap came, she went to the gate and watched her father drive away, wondering whether he would meet Enid in the street. “I am glad I am not going. Now the rest of the day is mine. Mine, and I am free to do whatever I choose!”
The road was like iron; it rang under the pony’s hoofs, and Anne thought she had never seen a lovelier morning; the spell of the frost was more beautiful than the enchanted world of the snow had been a month before, though it was not so strange. Every twig was fledged with rime, for there had been a fog during the night, but already the sun had broken through the mist, the sky was showing blue overhead, and the white tops of the elms were blushing in the sunshine.
“Every tree is smothered in snowy blossom; it is as if spring had come,” and she thought that the flowering time of the cherry in Japan could not equal the beauty of this February morning in England. When she turned to go back into the house she noticed that the bare wall of the vicarage was covered with hoarfrost, an opalescent bloom shining in the sunlight.
“A fairy palace fit for the Snow Queen or the Sleeping Beauty,” she said, and the words reminded her that Maggie must be waiting for her to make the beds.
“You ought to see the fat woman,” said Maggie Pattle. “Her bosom was bigger than that pair of marrows Mr. Lambert gave for Harvest Festival; there’s a paper outside says she is only twenty and weighs nineteen stone. I shall never call Ida Whalley fat again, after last night.”
Linton Fair lasted two days, and the merry-go-rounds were staying till the end of the week.
“I went in the swing-boats, and I went to the circus, and I spent seven shillings altogether,” said Maggie with triumph.