"Pink!" exclaimed Norton, looking at his little companion with an air half of amusement and half of something like vexation.
"Well, don't you think so? Because nobody sees those white feathers of frost piled up there, and these that the horses are treading under feet. They do nobody any good."
"It does you good to know they are there," said Norton.
"That's true!" exclaimed Matilda. "O I'm very glad to know about them; and I am very glad the snow is so wonderful; and I am glad to feel that God is so rich, and that he has made things so beautiful."
There was something in this speech that jarred upon Norton; something, though he could not have told what it was, that seemed to separate Matilda from him; there was a sweet, innocent kind of appropriation which he could not share; it told of relations in which Matilda stood and to which he was a stranger. Norton liked nothing that seemed like division between them; but he did not find anything just then to say, and remained silent; while Matilda rode along in a kind of glorious vision that was half heavenly and half earthly. That was this snowy morning to her. Covered up warm in the furs of the sleigh, she leaned back and used her eyes; rejoicing in the white brilliance of the earth and the sunny blue of the heaven, and finding strange food for joy in them; or what appears strange to those who do not know it. The sleigh rushed along, past houses and shops and the familiar signs hung out along the street; then reaching the corner, whirled round to the left. Matilda's home, until now, had always lain the other way. She turned her head and looked back, up the street.
"What is it?" Norton asked.
"Nothing—except that I am so glad not to be going that way."
"No," said Norton. "Not that way any more. We have got you, Pink."
"I don't understand it," said Matilda. "It makes me dizzy when I think of it."
"Here we are!" cried Norton, as the horses wheeled in through the iron gate. "It's all snow, Pink; it will be too late to plant our tulips and hyacinths."