As she dressed the next morning Grace saw a white world reluctantly disclosing itself in the gray dawn. Trenton was already gone, and hearing the scraping of a shovel she looked out and saw him clearing a path that led to an old barn which Kemp had converted into a garage. Jerry darted out of the kitchen to remonstrate and Trenton ceased from his labors to fling a shovelful of snow at him.
When she went down Trenton met her in the hall, kissed her and led her with mock ceremony to the dining room door.
“Breakfast for two! Something awfully cozy about that table, with the plates so close together!”
“Just perfect! I’d like to take a run through the snow; wouldn’t it be jolly! And there’s that hill we climbed yesterday that would be a grand place for coasting!”
“No time for that now!” he replied looking at his watch. “There’s a good six inches of snow and being out so early we’ll have to be pathfinders. It will be about all we can do to hit Washington street by eight-thirty. There’s going to be waffles and maple syrup for breakfast. I got that out of Jerry; also bacon and guaranteed eggs.”
“The Olympians had nothing on us!” she replied in his own key of gaiety.
“Oh, we are become even as the gods!” he cried, drawing out her chair. “This is a touch—breakfast by candlelight!”
Tall candles in glass holders lighted the table. Grace for a fleeting moment thought of the kitchen at home, where her mother and Ethel were now preparing breakfast, wholly ignorant of her whereabouts. Trenton saw the smile waver and leave her face, and he bent over and laid his hand on hers.
“You know—No! you don’t, you can’t know what all this means to me! I feel as though I’d been dead and come to life again!”
“Does it mean so much, dear?” she asked, her eyes, intent and searching, meeting his.