Of course they'll be very
haughty and proud, but I'll be tactful, and when I go away I'll casually
leave a diamond tiara in the front hall."
"What _is_ the matter with you this morning?"
"Christmas," I said.
I can't tell how pleased I was with the enterprise I had in mind: it
suggested all sorts of amusing and surprising developments. Moreover, I
left Harriet, finally, in the breeziest of spirits, having quite
forgotten her disappointment over the non-arrival of the cousins.
"If you _should_ get the Starkweathers----"
"'In the bright lexicon of youth,'" I observed, "'there is no such word
as fail.'"
So I set off up the town road. A team or two had already been that way
and had broken a track through the snow. The sun was now fully up, but
the air still tingled with the electricity of zero weather. And the
fields! I have seen the fields of June and the fields of October, but I
think I never saw our countryside, hills and valleys, tree spaces and
brook bottoms more enchantingly beautiful than it was this morning. Snow
everywhere--the fences half hidden, the bridges clogged, the trees
laden: where the road was hard it squeaked under my feet, and where it
was soft I strode through the drifts.
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