One of his most delightful tasks, however, was in aiding Amy to embower the old house in wreaths and festoons of evergreens. The rooms grew into aromatic bowers. Autumn leaves and ferns gave to the heavier decorations a light, airy beauty which he had never seen before. Grace itself Amy appeared as she mounted the step-ladder and reached here and there, twining and coaxing everything into harmony.
What was the effect of all this companionship on her mind? She least of all could have answered: she did not analyze. Each day was full and joyous. She was being carried forward on a shining tide of happiness, and yet its motion was so even, quiet, and strong that there was nothing to disturb her maidenly serenity. If Webb had been any one but Webb, and if she had been in the habit of regarding all men as possible admirers, she would have understood herself long before this. If she had been brought up with brothers in her own home she would have known that she welcomed this quiet brother with a gladness that had a deeper root than sisterly affection. But the fact that he was Webb, the quiet, self-controlled man who had called her sister Amy for a year, made his presence, his deep sympathy with her and for her, seem natural. His approaches had been so gradual that he was stealing into her heart as spring enters a flower. You can never name the first hour of its presence; you take no note of the imperceptible yet steady development. The process is quiet, yet vital and sure, and at last there comes an hour when the bud is ready to open. That time was near, and Webb hoped that it was. His tones were now and then so tender and gentle that she looked at him a little wonderingly, but his manner was quiet and far removed from that of the impetuous Burt. There was a warmth in it, however, like the increasing power of the sun, and in human hearts bleak December can be the spring-time as truly as May.
It was the twenty-third—one of the stormiest days of a stormy month. The snowflakes were whirling without, and making many a circle in the gale before joining their innumerable comrades that whitened the ground. The wind sighed and soughed about the old house as it had done a year before, but Webb and Amy were armed against its mournfulness. They were in the parlor, on whose wide hearth glowed an ample fire. Burt and Gertrude were expected on the evening train.
"Gertie is coming home through the snow just as I did," said Amy, fastening a spray of mistletoe that a friend had sent her from England to the chandelier; "and the same old warm welcome awaits her."
"What a marvellous year it has been!" Webb remarked.
"It has, indeed. Just think of it! Burt is engaged to one of whose existence he did not know a year ago. He has been out West, and found that you have land that will make you all rich."
"Are these the greatest marvels of the year, Amy?"
"No, there is a greater one. I didn't know you a year ago to-day, and now I seem to have known you always, you great patient, homely old fellow—'deliciously homely.' I shall never get over that."
"The eyes of scores of young fellows looked at you that evening as if you were deliciously handsome."
"And you looked at me one time as if you hadn't a friend in the world, and you wanted to be back in your native wilds."