What artist sense had
she,--what could she know--the ignorant huckster--of the eternal laws
of beauty or grandeur? Nothing. Yet something in the girl's face made
her think that these hills, this air and sky, were in fact alive to
her,--real; that her soul, being lower, it might be, than ours, lay
closer to Nature, knew the language of the changing day, of these
earnest-faced hills, of the very worms crawling through the brown mould.
It was an idle fancy; Margaret laughed at herself for it, and turned
to watch the slow morning-struggle which Lois followed with such eager
eyes.
The light was conquering, growing stronger. Up the gray arch the soft,
dewy blue crept gently, deepening, broadening; below it, the level bars
of light struck full on the sullen black of the west, and worked there
undaunted, tinging it with crimson and imperial purple. Two or three
coy mist-clouds, soon converted to the new allegiance, drifted giddily
about, mere flakes of rosy blushes. The victory of the day came slowly,
but sure, and then the full morning flushed out, fresh with moisture and
light and delicate perfume. The bars of sunlight fell on the lower earth
from the steep hills like pointed swords; the foggy swamp of wet vapor
trembled and broke, so touched, rose at last, leaving patches of damp
brilliance on the fields, and floated majestically up in radiant victor
clouds, led by the conquering wind.
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