"Miss Jane, I count it very unkind of Jack not to have let me go to Farmington with him last term. He used to talk of his 'little sister' as though she were a miss in short dresses. Jack is a deep and treacherous fellow!"
"Rather say, a very prudent brother," said Jane. "However, you may come to the Elm Tree Inn in the spring term, if Jack will let you."
"I'll work him all winter," was Jarvis's reply.
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHRISTMAS
Christmas light was slow in coming. There was a hush in the air as if the earth were padded so that even the footsteps of Nature might not be heard. Out of my window I saw that a great fall of snow had come in the night. The whole landscape was covered by fleecy down—soft and white as it used to be when I first saw it on the hills of New England. No wind had moved it; it lay as it fell, like a white mantle thrown lightly over the world. Great feathery flakes filled the air and gently descended upon the earth, like that beautiful Spirit that made the plains of Judea bright two thousand years ago. It seemed a fitting emblem of that nature which covered the unloveliness of the world by His own beauty, and changed the dark spots of earth to pure white.
It was an ideal Christmas morning,—clean and beautiful. Such a wealth of purity was in the air that all the world was clothed with it. The earth accepted the beneficence of the skies, and the trees bent in thankfulness for their beautiful covering. It was a morning to make one thoughtful,—to make one thankful, too, for home and friends and country, and a future that could be earned, where the white folds of usefulness and purity would cover man's inheritance of selfishness and passion.
For an hour I watched the big flakes fall; and, as I watched, I dreamed the dream of peace for all the world. The brazen trumpet of war was a thing of the past. The white dove of peace had built her nest in the cannon's mouth and stopped its awful roar. The federation of the world was secured by universal intelligence and community of interest. Envy and selfishness and hypocrisy, and evil doing and evil speaking, were deeply covered by the snowy mantle that brought "peace on earth and good will to men."
My dream was not dispelled by any rude awakening. As the house threw off the fetters of the night and gradually struggled into activity, it was in such a fresh and loving manner and with such thoughtful solicitude for each member of our world, that I walked in my dream all day.