As Elizabeth Ward stood that morning before the wide hearth in the dining-room, she was glad that she still could find, in this first snow of the season, the simple wonder and delight of that childhood she had left not so very far behind. Her last glimpse of the world the night before had been of trees lashed by a cold rain, of arc-lamps with globes of fog, of wet asphalt pavements reflecting the lights of Claybourne Avenue. But now, everywhere, there was snow, heaped in exquisite drifts about the trees, and clinging in soft masses to the rough bark of their trunks. The iron fence about the great yard was half buried in it, the houses along the avenue seemed far away and strange in the white transfiguration, and the roofs lost their familiar outlines against the low gray sky that hung over them. "Hurry, Gusta!" said Elizabeth. "This is splendid! I must go right out!" The maid who was laying the breakfast smiled; "It was a regular blizzard, Miss Elizabeth." "Was it?" Elizabeth lifted her skirt a little, and rested the toe of her slipper on the low brass fender. The wood was crackling cheerfully. "Has mama gone out?" "Oh, yes, Miss Elizabeth, an hour ago." "Of course," Elizabeth said, glancing at the little clock on the mantelpiece, ticking in its refined way. Its hands pointed to half-past ten. "I quite forgot the dinner." Her brow clouded. "What a bore!" she thought. Then she said aloud: "Didn’t mama leave any word?" "She said not to disturb you, Miss Elizabeth." Gusta had served the breakfast, and now, surveying her work with an expression of pleasure, poured the coffee. Beside Elizabeth’s plate lay the mail and a morning newspaper. The newspaper had evidently been read at some earlier breakfast, and because it was rumpled Elizabeth pushed it aside. She read her letters while she ate her breakfast, and then, when she laid her napkin aside, she looked out of the windows again. "I must go out for a long walk," she said, speaking as much to herself as to the maid, though not in the same eager tone she had found for her resolution a while before. "It must have snowed very hard. It wasn’t snowing when I came home." "It began at midnight, Miss Elizabeth," said Gusta, "and it snowed so hard I had an awful time getting here this morning. I could hardly find my way, it fell so thick and fast." Elizabeth did not reply, and Gusta went on: "I stayed home last night--my brother just got back yesterday; I stayed to see him." "Your brother?" "Yes; Archie. He’s been in the army. He got home yesterday from the Phil’pines." "How interesting!" said Elizabeth indifferently. "Yes, he’s been there three years; his time was out and he came home. Oh, you should see him, Miss Elizabeth. He looks so fine!" "Does he look as fine as you, Gusta?" Elizabeth smiled affectionately, and Gusta’s fair German skin flushed to her yellow hair.