He took Ellen and her packages to the outer gate of the little cemetery on the afternoon before Christmas. The location of the cemetery suggested to him always a memento mori—the brevity of life was not to be forgotten by the residents of the Kloster! The whole place under the covering of snow seemed horribly dreary and forlorn. Ellen clambered out of the buggy and he held her packages out to her.
"In an hour and a half at most, I'll be here."
"May I invite them for Christmas dinner?"
"Yes."
"And Amos?" asked Ellen hesitatingly.
"Yes, and Amos."
She held her packages with care. She had tied them with red cord—such festive packages were not often carried through the cemetery. So accustomed was she to the path that she gave no thought to the white stones. When she came to the second gate she laid her bundle down and fastened the latch, as Grandfather liked to have it fastened, and went up the little walk to the cottage, already shadowed by the Saal and Saron. It had never been her habit to knock at the door, and she did not knock now, but balancing her picture carefully on one arm, she lifted the latch and entered.
It could not have been that the three men had not seen her coming—Grandfather sitting by the stove meditating, and Amos sitting by the table studying, and Matthew sitting idly by the window, all commanded a view of the gate and the graveyard. Each now had in secret a throbbing heart, each longed to let his eyes rest upon her, to devour her. But none had gone to open the door, and now none rose to welcome her.
But her smile was not to be resisted. It brought a faint motion to Grandfather's lips and a red flush to Matthew's cheek, and caused both heart and cheek of Amos to burn. All saw a change in Ellen, added height, a brighter color, a longer dress. Her dress was, moreover, gayer. Hitherto Mrs. Sassaman in selecting her clothes had remembered that she was destined to be a Seventh-Day Baptist and that therefore plainness was her portion; now her father had selected a new coat and hat, with a very decided intention that she was not to be plain in any sense of the word. Her coloring and his own masculine taste inclined him to red, but the clerk had persuaded him to take brown, and Ellen in a brown coat and a fur cap gratified him beyond all his hopes.