Читать книгу Wintersmoon онлайн

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"It's late. Nearly three. We'll go to bed and be warm in no time." Janet stood up, staring in front of her, seeing through walls and walls and walls far into Destiny.

"Ugh! How I detest this flat! It's shut in like a mortuary. Everything wants re-covering." Then Rosalind smiled. She had remembered something. She got up, disappeared into the next room, returned, a parcel in her hand.

She stood up against her sister smiling very prettily.

"Three o'clock in the morning is an absurd time to give you anything. But I can't wait. I got it this afternoon."

"For me? A present?" Janet's eyes shone, because like all good people she adored presents.

She took the little gilt scissors from the table, cut the string (a wicked proceeding), there was a thin wooden box with a lid, then cotton wool, then——

"Oh, take care!" Rosalind cried. "You'll drop it!"

But not Janet. Slowly, with all the eager awfulness of anticipation, she drew out the treasure. She held it out. She gasped.

It was the loveliest thing, quite the loveliest thing ever seen. It was a little tree, silver and white and green. Its leaves were of coloured metal, its flowers of silver, and it stood in a porphyry bowl. It was perfect. It was enchanted. Already, held there in Janet's hand, it had a life of its own, a magical life, gleaming, glittering under the electric light, but encased too in its own shining armour that held it apart, by itself, in its own natural and unstained beauty.