Page:A daughter of the rich, by M. E. Waller.djvu/54



was the middle of April, yet the drifts still blocked the ravines, and great patches of snow lay scattered thickly on the northern and eastern slopes of the mountains.

Not a bud had thought of swelling; not a fern dared to raise its downy ball above the sodden leaves. Day after day a keen wind from the north chased dark clouds across a watery blue sky, and now and then a solitary crow flapped disconsolately over the upland pastures and into the woods.

But in the farmhouse on the mountain, every Blossom was a-quiver with excitement, for the "live Valentine" was to arrive that day.

According to what Doctor Heath had written first, Mrs. Blossom had expected Hazel to come the middle of March. She had told the children about it a week before that date, and ever since, wild and varied and continuous had been the speculations concerning the new member of the family.

Both father and mother were much amused at the different ways in which each one accepted the fact, and commented upon it. At the same time they were slightly anxious as to the outcome of such a combination.