Snow had fallen, deeper than she had ever
seen. With it had come that strange quality of visibility that seems to
appertain to a sheeted world like an inherent luminosity; or was it
perchance some vague diffusion of light from the clouded moon, skulking
affrighted somewhere in the grim and sullen purlieus of the sky? She
listened, thinking to hear the stir of horses in their stalls, some sound
from barn or byre, the wakening of the restless poultry, all snugly
housed; but the somnolent stillness of the muffled earth continued
unbroken, and only the frantic wind screamed and howled and wailed.
One sombre hour succeeded another as if the succession were endless.
Long, long before there was the sense of a boreal dawn in the chill
darkness, the house stood in readiness, though none came. The servants
were presently astir; the fires were freshly flaring, the furniture
rearranged. In view of the freeze, the gardener had seen fit to cut all
the blooms in the pit to save them from blight, and a great silver bowl
on the table in the hall, and the vases in the library, were filled with
exotics.
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