The snow-flakes were very large, they fell leisurely, melting almost as soon as they touched Tessa’s flower bed; she was sitting at one of the sitting-room windows writing. She wrote, as it is said that all ladies do, upon her lap, her desk being a large blank book; her inkstand stood upon the window-sill; the cane-seated chair in front of her served several purposes, one of them being a foot-rest; upon the chair were piled “Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases,” “Recreations of a Country Parson,” a Bible, the current numbers of the Living Age and Harper’s Magazine, and George Macdonald’s latest book.
Her wrapper was in two shades of brown, the ruffle at her throat was fastened by a knot of blue velvet; in one brown pocket were a lead pencil, a letter from an editor, who had recently published a work upon which he had been busy twenty years and had thereby become so famous that the letter in her pocket was an event in her life, especially as it began: “My dear Miss Tessa, I like your letter and I like you.”
Her father was very proud of that letter.
In the other brown pocket were a tangle of pink cord, a half yard of tatting, and a shuttle, and—what Tessa had read and reread—three full sheets of mercantile note from Miss Sarepta Towne.
Dinah was seated at another window embroidering moss roses upon black velvet; the black velvet looked as if it might mean a slipper for a good-sized foot. There was a secret in the eyes that were intent upon the roses; the secret that was hidden in many pairs of eyes—brown, blue, hazel—in Dunellen in these days before Christmas.
There was not even the hint of a secret in the eyes that were opening “Thesaurus” and looking for a synonym for Information.
“Poor Tessa!” almost sighed happy Dinah, “she has to plod through manuscript and books, and doesn’t know half how nice it is to make slippers.”
Poor Tessa closed her book just then and looked out into the falling snow.
“Perhaps we shall hear that he’s dead to-day,” said Dinah, brushing a white thread off the velvet. “I have expected to hear that every day for a week.”
“But you said that he talked real bright last week.”