A poor wanderer stood with hat in hand waiting there; the wind was toying with his gray locks, his thin garments protected him but poorly from the cold, and through his broken shoes could be seen his stockingless feet.
“They are all busy preparing supper; you need not wait,” she answered hurriedly in response to his humble appeal for a cup of hot coffee.
“No, Archie won’t wait,” said the wanderer, turning meekly away. “Archie is hungry and tired, and the snow is cold, but Archie won’t wait.”
Closing the door quickly, Mrs. Merryman went to her room, dressed as speedily as possible and descended in time to receive Mrs. Courtney, who passed on up to the guest chamber to remove her wraps and be in readiness to help receive.
Mrs. Merryman had no anxiety for the successful serving of the supper, and later the refreshments, for in addition to her own efficient maid, Norah, Diana Strong had the management, and through the kindness of Mrs. Courtney, Kitty was her helper, while Mose, in white apron and gloves, was proud to have been loaned to wait upon the door and afterward the table.
Notwithstanding these helps to contentment, Mrs. Merryman carried a heavy heart under her silken attire. The words of the half-frozen wanderer kept up a refrain in her memory: “Archie is hungry and tired and the snow is cold, but Archie won’t wait.”
Oh, to look about her in that comfortable home; the whole place glowing with light and heat, the kitchen redolent with roasting poultry; and she had refused the cup of coffee that might have kept hope and even life in the stranger!
“I do not deserve to have a roof over my head!” she said to herself as bitter tears welled to her eyes, but she controlled her feelings, for the halting of sleighs at the gate gave token that the bridal party had arrived.
Amid the chattering of merry voices her depression was unnoticed and the guests passed up to their rooms. Friends invited to meet them were coming in couples and groups, and she welcomed all smilingly, but her thoughts were upon the old and poorly clad man whom she had turned from her door.
At the moment of the arrival of the bridal party, Hilda Brinsfield, in the cottage of Jerusha Flint, was kneeling upon a chair by the western window; not watching with childlike interest the passing sleighs with their joyous jingling of bells, but with a look of interest and hope upon her pale face to which for many a day it had been a stranger.