Eliza mailed her letter. She lost no time, but sent Beth off to the post-office immediately after breakfast, lest she regret and prove weak enough to keep it back.
That evening the “tramp” came up the slope earlier than usual. The ground was white with snow. The drifts were deep in the ravine, but he had kept the path broken. He stepped more briskly than usual. He whistled and sang exultingly. He carried a milk-bucket and had under his arm several letters and magazines. In one hand was a great bouquet of crimson roses, wrapped in oiled paper to keep them from the biting cold. His feet were eager to reach the Wells home. He sang and then laughed aloud to himself. He was a most peculiar sort of tramp. One could tell that from the great coat he wore. Rough cloth on the outside and black, shaggy fur within. Wind and weather never kept him back. There was something unusual in the air this night. He was fairly bubbling over with excitement.
He knocked at Miss Eliza’s door and entered before she could respond. He came directly to where she stood, removed the oiled paper and let a score of crimson roses nod and smile at her.
“I want to be the first to lay my homage at the feet of the famous one,” he said. “Permit me, madam, to present the roses to her who is making her name a household word.”
He thrust the flowers between her hands. Eliza was confused. His manner was strange. Then, too, no one had ever offered her homage, or had bought her roses. Roses with the mercury ten degrees below zero. Eliza had never seen roses except in June.
Her face grew crimson. She tried to speak, but could find no words.
“You’re all at sea. This will explain.” Opening one of the magazines, he laid it on the table, holding it with finger and thumb that it might not close.
“Why—why—it’s our house,” cried Beth.
“And it’s our Adee,” said the man, turning the page where was a picture of Eliza herself standing under the trees with the leaves about her.
“I had my camera set for a week before I could get that,” he cried triumphantly. “I was bound to get it by fair means or foul.”