There was still another and very mysterious present, this being a huge box of roses, addressed to Miss Cynthia Wetherell, which was delivered on Christmas morning.  If there had been a card, Susan Merrill would certainly have found it.  There was no card.  There was much pretended speculation on the part of the Merrill girls as to the sender, sly reference to Cynthia’s heightened color, and several attempts to pin on her dress a bunch of the flowers, and Susan declared that one of them would look stunning in her hair.  They were put on the dining-room table in the centre of the wreath of holly, and under the mistletoe which hung from the chandelier.  Whether Cynthia surreptitiously stole one has never been discovered.

So Christmas came and went:  not altogether unhappily, deferring for a day at least the knotty problems of life.  Although Cynthia accepted the present of the roses with such magnificent unconcern, and would not make so much as a guess as to who sent them, Mr. Robert Worthington was frequently in her thoughts.  He had declared his intention of coming to Mount Vernon Street as soon as the holidays ended, and had been cordially invited by Susan to do so.  Cynthia took the trouble to procure a Harvard catalogue from the library, and discovered that he had many holidays yet to spend.  She determined to write another letter, which he would find in his rooms when he returned.  Just what terrible prohibitory terms she was to employ in that letter Cynthia could not decide in a moment, nor yet in a day, or a week.  She went so far as to make several drafts, some of which she destroyed for the fault of leniency, and others for that of severity.  What was she to say to him?  She had expended her arguments to no avail.  She could wound him, indeed, and at length made up her mind that this was the only resource left her, although she would thereby wound herself more deeply.  When she had arrived at this decision, there remained still more than a week in which to compose the letter.

On the morning after New Year’s, when the family were assembled around the breakfast table, Mrs. Merrill remarked that her husband was neglecting a custom which had been his for many years.

“Didn’t the newspaper come, Stephen?” she asked.

Mr. Merrill had read it.

“Read it!” repeated his wife, in surprise, “you haven’t been down long enough to read a column.”

“It was full of trash,” said Mr. Merrill, lightly, and began on his usual jokes with the girls.  But Mrs. Merrill was troubled.  She thought his jokes not as hearty as they were wont to be, and disquieting surmises of business worries filled her mind.  The fact that he beckoned her into his writing room as soon as breakfast was over did not tend to allay her suspicions.  He closed and locked the door after her, and taking the paper from a drawer in his desk bade her read a certain article in it.