And then quietly she slips off to her own room, as if to fetch something, and takes something from a drawer—­a little thing she has kept there long.  Looks for some paper, or a bag, to put it in, searches and looks again, and finds it at last, packs it up and ties it round with string, tying the hardest knot she can manage, and cutting the ends off close, so it can’t be opened without being seen—­and laughs to herself.

Then she goes back to the room, with the thing in her pocket.  The traveller is getting ready to go.

“’Tis time to mix the cattle food,” says the girl.  And from the kitchen window she can see the traveller come out to his horse and make ready to start.  He drives out of the yard and down the road at a trot.  “Now!” says she to herself, and races off after him.

Olof can see her as she runs—­how her breast heaves as she comes up with the cart and hails the driver.  How she blushes and looks down, and then, having gained her purpose, runs off again too full of joy even to thank the messenger, running a race, as it were, with her own delight.  And then, once back at the house, she looks round anxiously to every side, lest any should have seen her, and goes in to her work again....

Filled with a quiet joy, Olof opens the packet.

A big, dark red apple carries her greeting.

“The very colour of the rowans!” he cries—­as if the girl had chosen that very one from a great store, though he knows well enough it was likely the only one she had.

And his heart swells with joy and pride at the thought.  “Was there ever such a greeting—­or such a girl!”

Once more his mind goes back to that happy autumn; he turns the apple in his hand caressingly, and looks out through the window and smiles.

Then he notices that the apple seems harder to the touch in one place, as if to call his attention to something.  He looks at it again, and sees that the skin on one side is raised, with a cut all round, is if done with a knife.  He lifts the flap of skin, and it comes away like a lid; underneath is a folded slip of paper.

“More!” he cries, and with trembling hands, with joy at heart, he unfolds it.  Only a tiny fragment, and on one side a few words awkwardly traced with pencil: 

“Now I know what it is to be sad.  Have you quite forgotten your Rowan?  I think of you every night when I go to sleep.”

The apple falls into his lap, the paper trembles in his hand, and a moisture dims his eyes.

He looks up.  Great soft snowflakes are dropping slowly to the ground.

Minutes pass.  The twilight deepens, till at last all is darkness, but he sits there still looking out, with the paper in his hand.

He can no longer see—­but he feels how the great soft snowflakes are still falling....

DAISY

The daisy bloomed on the window-sill ... in the window of a little room.