he had just received from Maria Edgham. He had no conception of the
girl plodding through the snow to her daily task. He did not dream
that she saw, instead of the snowy road before, a long stretch of
dreary future, brought about by that very rebuff. But she was quite
merciless with herself. She would not yield for a moment to regrets.
She accepted that stretch of dreary future with a defiant
acquiescence. She bowed pleasantly to the acquaintances whom she met.
They were not many that morning, for the road was hardly passable in
places, being overcurved here and there with blue, diamond-crested,
snowlike cascades, and now presenting ridges like graves. Half-way to
the school-house, Maria saw the village snow-plough, drawn by a
struggling horse and guided by a red-faced man. She stood aside to
let it pass. The man did not look at her. He frowned ahead at his
task. He was quite an old man, and bent, but with the red of youth
brought forth in his cheeks by the frosty air.

"Everybody has to work in some way," Maria thought, "and very few get
happiness for their labor."

She reflected how soon that man would be lying stiff and stark under
the wintry snows and the summer heats, and how nothing which might
trouble him now would matter. She reflected that, although she
herself was younger and had presumably longer to live, that the time
would inevitably come when even such unhappiness as weighed her down
this morning would not matter. She continued in the ineffectual track
which the snow-plough had made, with a certain pleasure in the
exertion. All Maria's heights of life, her mountain-summits which she
would agonize to reach, were spiritual. Labor in itself could never
daunt her. Always her spirit, the finer essence of her, would soar
butterfly-like above her toiling members.

It was a beautiful morning; the trees were heavily bent with snow,
which gave out lustres like jewels. The air had a very purity of life
in it. Maria inhaled the frosty, clear air, and regarded the trees as
one might have done who was taking a stimulant. She kept her mind
upon them, and would not think of George Ramsey. As she neared the
school-house, the first child who ran to meet her, stumbling through
the snow, was little Jessy Ramsey. Maria forced herself to meet
smilingly the upward, loving look of those blue Ramsey eyes. She bent
down and kissed Jessy, and the little thing danced at her side in a
rapture.

"They be awful warm, my close, teac