Meanwhile, the starry flakes came faster and faster. Some of the more adventurous alighted on the kitchen window and gazed in until they were finally melted at the sight. A few ventured down into the well, and, drifting against the mossy stones, gave to the slender ferns that peeped from the chinks the food they had gathered in the skies; others found their way through a broad crack into the barn and fell noiselessly upon the floor with its hayseed carpet, thereupon causing much wonderment and grave discussion among the fowls, who were exchanging views in low tones on the topics of the morning. If you had been in the woods, you would have heard the tick-ticking of the tiny crystals, like the dancing of myriads of fairy feet, upon the dry leaves which still clung to the oak and beech.
So fell the snowflakes over meadow and fallow, wood and hill, bringing the materials that should be built up into corn and wheat during the coming year and thus provide food for thousands who would then be reciting their prayers for daily bread, without a thought that the answers had begun so many months before.
Now, either by a preconcerted plan or by an impulse of the moment, one of the most daring of the advance guard of the storm resolved to have a wild ride before he gave up his substance to winds and earth; and so it came about that a chubby nose, which had previously been flattened against one of the plate-glass windows of a Pullman car on a northbound train, suddenly withdrew itself, and a childish voice exclaimed, “Oh, Miss Amory, it’s snowing! it’s snowing! Here’s a little mite of a flake on the window. Oh, mamma, won’t it be nice sleighing for Santa Claus! He can come right on the tops of the trees: I saw a lot that looked just like frosted cake.”
“Yes, dear; yes, dear,” said the quiet lady in the next chair, glancing up from her “Seaside” pamphlet. “Only don’t speak so loud, Maurice. You will disturb the other people in the car.”
“Miss Amory,” persisted the boy, but in lower tones, “won’t you go out and coast with me, and take a great, long, long sleigh-ride to-morrow?”
“Yes, Maurice, if mamma would like me to,” replied the one addressed, a little wearily. She had not yet quite schooled herself to her position, this young governess, and the constant reference of even such trifles as the boy’s request to a higher authority still jarred on her spirits. She had not, indeed, like most paper heroines, been accustomed to the luxuries of wealth, with phalanxes of servants devoting themselves exclusively to her service and amusement, but she had enjoyed the comforts of a well-to-do New England home, the independence of American girlhood, and the priceless blessing of a mother who understood her thoroughly and was always ready to sympathize with her daughter’s pleasures and troubles alike, to counsel or remain silent, as the case might be, and to help her out of all her girlish perplexities, from the choice of a ribbon to the treatment of an importunate suitor. It was a brave thing, this setting her face resolutely to the world, and she had accordingly made up her mind at the start to look for and meet every unpleasant concomitant to her new position without a murmur.
At first she had been uncertain at what door she should knock of all those opening into the tower named Self-Support, but, as she approached, one of them flew open before her hand was raised. A lady who was spending the summer near by gave out word that she wished for a governess to take charge of her two children and accompany them to the city in the autumn. Miss Amory’s bright face and gentle ways won the children at first sight. She was retained on trial, and had proved too great a treasure to be relinquished.