THE STROBE OF THE HOUR
"They won't come to-night--sure."
The girl looked again towards the west, where, here and there, bare
poles, or branches of trees, or slips of underbrush marked a road made
across the plains through the snow. The sun was going down golden red,
folding up the sky a wide soft curtain of pink and mauve and deep purple
merging into the fathomless blue, where already the stars were beginning
to quiver. The house stood on the edge of a little forest, which had
boldly asserted itself in the wide flatness. At this point in the west
the prairie merged into an undulating territory, where hill and wood
rolled away from the banks of the Saskatchewan, making another England in
beauty. The forest was a sort of advance-post of that land of beauty.
Yet there was beauty too on this prairie, though there was nothing to the
east but snow and the forest so far as eye could see. Nobility and peace
and power brooded over the white world.
As the girl looked, it seemed as though the bosom of the land rose and
fell. She had felt this vibrating life beat beneath the frozen surface.
Now, as she gazed, she smiled sadly to herself, with drooping eyelids
looking out from beneath strong brows.
Pages:
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65