"May I be the first to wish you a very happy New Year?" he said. "You are too late. Bessie, our domestic drudge and best friend, was the first; then Uncle George. He seemed to have very little hope. You are the third--and thank you. And a happy New Year to you, too." "It has begun happily," he said gravely. "Yes. I can smell the spring coming through the mist. And soon there'll be snowdrops and crocuses." "You are fond of flowers?" His words were more a statement than a question, and his implied sureness of her love for beauty hampered while it pleased her. She shook her shoulders and spoke quickly. "Yes, but I like spring better. I like the smell of the wind and the way the earth lets things through. It's so eager!" "Autumn is my favourite time of year." She looked at him acutely. "It's not so pushing, is it? More resigned--and all the dying things have the respectability of age. But my buds insist on coming out. They're active, and your autumn leaves are passive: they just flutter down, poor things. The buds for me!" He thought she was like the spring herself, and was immediately converted to her view. "I shall watch spring this year with different eyes," he said, and the blood ran swiftly, joyously in her veins. He left her at the foot of the broad steps leading to the front door, but they met at lunch, and when Theresa went home that evening she found a sheaf of flowers awaiting her. "Who brought them, Bessie?" she asked, fingering them softly, for they were the flowers a lover chooses--roses, lilies and violets, delicate and sweet-scented things. "A tall young feller--strange to me. 'Andsome." "Fair?" "Dark, with a moustache." "I'd better put them in water," Theresa said quickly, and carried them upstairs.