Several days had passed, and there had been no answer to the note. She
had not really expected an answer, but she had thought he might come in.
He came in now, with a great parcel in his arms. He was a picturesque
figure in an enveloping cape and a soft hat pulled down over his gray
hair, and with white flakes powdered over his shoulders.
"Good morning, Miss Bridges," he said; "did you think I was never
coming?"
His manner of assuming that she had expected him quite took Emily's
breath away. "I am glad you came," she said, simply. "It is rather
dreary, with the snow, and this morning I found my cyclamen frozen on
the shelf."
He glanced up at it. "We have other flowers," he said, and, with a
sure sense of the dramatic effect, untied the string of his parcel.
Then there was revealed to Miss Emily's astonished eyes not the flowers
that she had expected, but four small plush elephants, duplicates in
everything but size of the one she had loaned to Ulrich, and each
elephant carried on his back a fragrant load of violets cunningly kept
fresh by a glass tube hidden in his trappings.
"There," said Ulrich Stoelle, "my father sent them.
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