This general despondency seemed to reach a climax one afternoon some days before the end of the year. Without, the wind was blowing and snow was descending; inside, the housework dragged monotonously. The only lively people in the house were the little children. They were playing quite riotously in an upper room, under the care of the Canadian girl, Eliza; but their shouts only elicited sighs from Mrs. Rexford's elder daughters, who were helping her to wash the dinner dishes in the kitchen.
These two elder daughters had, since childhood, always been dressed, so far as convenient, the one in blue, the other in red, and were nicknamed accordingly. Their mother thought it gave them individuality which they otherwise lacked. The red frock and the blue were anything but gay just now, for they were splashed and dusty, and the pretty faces above them showed a decided disposition to pout and frown, even to shed tears.
The kitchen was a long, low room. The unpainted wood of floor, walls, and ceiling was darkened somewhat by time. Two square, four-paned windows were as yet uncurtained, except that Nature, with the kindness of a fairy helper, had supplied the lack of deft fingers and veiled the glass with such devices of the frost as resembled miniature landscapes of distant alp and nearer minaret. The large, square cooking-stove smoked a little. Between the stove and the other door stood the table, which held the dishes at which worked the neat, quick mother and her rather untidy and idle daughters.
"Really, Blue and Red!" The words were jerked out to conceal a sigh which had risen involuntarily. "This is disgraceful."
Her sharp brown eyes fell on the pile of dishes she had washed, which the two girls, who were both drying them, failed to diminish as fast as she increased it.
"Our cloths are wet," said Blue, looking round the ceiling vaguely, as if a dry dish-towel might be lying somewhere on a rafter.
"I declare—" the mother began, tapping her foot. But what she was going to declare was never known, for just then a knock at the outer door diverted their attention.
However commonplace may be the moment after a door is opened, the moment before the opening is apt to be full of interest, for one can never know but that some cause of delightful excitement is on the other side.
It was Blue who opened the door. She did not at first open it very wide, for she had learned by experience how much icy air could rush in, and the other two, watching from behind, saw her answering some salutation with dubious politeness. Then, after a moment, they saw her open it more widely, and with a shy but hospitable inclination of the pretty head—"Will you walk in?" said Blue.
The young man who immediately entered had a very smart appearance to eyes which had grown accustomed to the working garb of father and brother. He was, moreover, handsome to a degree that is not ordinary. The curly hair from which he had lifted his fur cap was black and glossy as a blackbird's plumage, and the moustache, which did not cover the full red lips, matched the hair, save that it seemed of finer and softer material. His brown eyes had the glow of health and good spirits in them.