But finally the
level rays, reddening the snow, threw their gleam upon the wall, and,
hastily donning cloak and hood, she bade her friends farewell and
sallied forth on her return. Home lay some three miles distant, across
a copse, a meadow, and a piece of woods,--the woods being a fringe on
the skirts of the great forests that stretch far away into the North.
That home was one of a dozen log-houses lying a few furlongs apart from
each other, with their half-cleared demesnes separating them at the
rear from a wilderness untrodden save by stealthy native or deadly
panther tribes.
She was in a nowise exalted frame of spirit,--on the contrary, rather
depressed by the pain she had witnessed and the fatigue she had
endured; but in certain temperaments such a condition throws open the
mental pores, so to speak, and renders one receptive of every
influence. Through the little copse she walked slowly, with her cloak
folded about her, lingering to imbibe the sense of shelter, the sunset
filtered in purple through the mist of woven spray and twig, the
companionship of growth not sufficiently dense to band against her the
sweet home-feeling of a young and tender wintry wood. It was therefore
just on the edge of the evening that she emerged from the place and
began to cross the meadow-land.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140