I was badly upset for several days. For a time I resolutely put all thought of what had occurred from my mind, but as soon as I felt able, I sat down, with the whole matter before me, as it were, and deliberately looked it in the face. I think I never felt more inane in my life than when I remembered my folly, as I now regarded it. All that saved me from utter self-abasement was the fact that it had occurred at a time when I was at such a low ebb physically, by reason of illness. I determined to try to forget it, as speedily as possible. But, however keenly I felt the humiliation and folly of my emotion upon that strange night, it never occurred to me to waver, when recalling my decision to bring matters between Mr. Gregory and myself to an end. My refusal of him had been brought about by one cause, and only one--that I fully realized; and now that I had repudiated the cause, I might have been expected to reconsider the refusal. But I did not.
Soon after I was up and about once more, I learned that my little friend had not sent the flowers. I thought--no, I did not think! but I cherished secretly a--well, no! I cherished nothing in secret or in public!
I learned something else, soon after getting up, and this was that a story was going the rounds to the effect that Mr. Gregory had broken our engagement--and my disappointment had well-nigh occasioned me a relapse. But in a twinkling, almost before I had time to get indignant, Mrs. Catlin was running about, telling everybody that Mr. Gregory had confided in her, in strictest confidence, the truth of the matter, which was that I had ended the affair, and not he.
I was much moved by this manly act on Mr. Gregory's part. He showed his shrewdness, too; he could not announce this in public, or go to people one by one, so he confided it to Mrs. Catlin, and told her not to tell.
One Sabbath evening about ten o'clock, I began to lock up the house. Early retirement is something all but unknown to me, but that night, having no particular reason for sitting up, I was about to indulge in it as a novelty.
I raised the shade of one of the study windows, with intent to draw the bolt, but my hand paused in the act, for my eyes were captured by a scene of surpassing beauty. Fall had lately swept her gorgeous leaves one side, and closed her doors for the season, and we were now standing on the threshold of winter. The early snows are apt to be soft and clinging; it is later on, usually, when the thermometer takes a plunge downward, that they become crisp and hard. It is seldom, however, at any time of year that the atmospheric conditions are favorable to such a creation as I beheld that night. I hardly know just what is necessary to make it all--a still, moderate cold, and a very humid air are among the most important conditions, I believe.