So sincere an invitation needed little urging, especially as the guest experienced a sudden consciousness of the truth that in all the world there was not a table or a company that he would prefer. It was a most enjoyable Christmas dinner; not alone because the fare was delicious and delicate, but that these three, meet as often as they might, never lacked either topics or thoughts for conversation.
In the course of the evening, as they were discussing plants, Mr. Winthrop turned to Lily, saying, "My dear, take our friend out and show him that rare rose that opened to-day. I think there is not another plant like it in this country."
"Here is something finer than roses," Lily said, pausing at the entrance of the greenhouse by pots of English violets, white with blossoms.
"They are wonderfully sweet," he said, bending over them, "but I have a great partiality for their less pretentious American sisters, sturdy little souls, who push up green leaves through the snows fairly, and open their blue eyes smilingly in all sorts of weather. They are not exclusive, either; they make up for what they lack in fragrance by scattering themselves about the woods so that poor people may have them as freely as water or air."
"I can show you some of those, too," she said. "I brought them from the woods for the sake of old times. Here is my pet corner."
This was a moss-covered rock, the water trickling over it, tall ferns behind it, and clusters of wood violets nestling at the foot.
"This is a bit of the woods, you see, Mr. Thornton, except that the ferns are in pots, and the violets in boxes. Will not these violets be astonished when they wake up in this strange place instead of down by the stump in the woods where I found them?"
It seemed that Mr. Thornton's lips opened of themselves to say, "Yes, I very well remember the day."
And Lily, just then, remembered the day, too, and the curious circumstance that had often puzzled her—the maple branch broken off and laid in her path, and yet no one appeared to be in the woods but herself. "Was Mr. Thornton there, too?" She gave him a quick look, but he was absorbed in studying the violets with a perfectly grave face, and she put the idea from her as absurd.
"He is very absent-minded," she told herself; "is in haste to be gone, and considers me tiresome."