"Oh, Father!" she cried, when the dancing tune was over.
Then she said no more, had no vocabulary with which to say more. She felt both sorrow and gladness, but most of all she felt the pains of growth. There were tears in her eyes, then on her cheeks.
When on the way to the hotel her father asked whether she had liked it, she answered his question in a curious way.
The identical desire filled Levis's heart.
"I wish so, too. Perhaps you can persuade him."
"May I take him a Christmas present and speak to him then?"
"Certainly. To-morrow we'll find one for him."
The carefully chosen present was a picture which reminded Ellen of the view from Matthew's window. It was clear to Levis why she liked it, but he had small hopes that either persuasion or art would move Matthew.
"May I get a pair of gloves for Grandfather and something for Amos?"
He took Ellen and her packages to the outer gate of the little cemetery on the afternoon before Christmas. The location of the cemetery suggested to him always a _memento mori_--the brevity of life was not to be forgotten by the residents of the Kloster! The whole place under the covering of snow seemed horribly dreary and forlorn. Ellen clambered out of the buggy and he held her packages out to her.
"In an hour and a half at most, I'll be here."
"May I invite them for Christmas dinner?"
She held her packages with care. She had tied them with red cord--such festive packages were not often carried through the cemetery. So accustomed was she to the path that she gave no thought to the white stones. When she came to the second gate she laid her bundle down and fastened the latch, as Grandfather liked to have it fastened, and went up the little walk to the cottage, already shadowed by the Saal and Saron. It had never been her habit to knock at the door, and she did not knock now, but balancing her picture carefully on one arm, she lifted the latch and entered.
It could not have been that the three men had not seen her coming--Grandfather sitting by the stove meditating, and Amos sitting by the table studying, and Matthew sitting idly by the window, all commanded a view of the gate and the graveyard. Each now had in secret a throbbing heart, each longed to let his eyes rest upon her, to devour her. But none had gone to open the door, and now none rose to welcome her.