former serious mood with a reaction of greater earnestness. The winter
beauty of the brook, the grey, silent trees above, and the waste of dry
curled leaves all round--these faded from her observation because the
eye of her mind was again turned inwards to confront the circumstances
of her difficulty.

As she leaned thus in childlike attitude and womanly size, her arms
twined round the tree and her cheek resting on its smooth surface, that
clumsiness which in all young animals seems inseparable from the period
when recent physical growth is not yet entirely permeated by the
character-life which gives it individual expression, was not apparent
and any intelligent eye seeing her would have seen large beauty in her
figure, which, like a Venus in the years when art was young, had no
cramped proportions. Her rough, grey dress hung heavily about her; the
moccasins that encased her feet were half hidden in the loose pile of
dry leaves which had drifted high against the root of the tree. There
was, however, no visible eye there to observe her youthful comeliness or
her youthful distress. If some angel was near, regarding her, she did
not know it, and if she had, she would not have been much interested;
there was nothing in her mood to respond to angelic pity or
appreciation. As it was, the strong tree was impotent to return her
embrace; its cold bark had no response for the caress of her cheek; the
north wind that howled, the trees that swayed, the dead leaves that
rustling fled, and the stream that murmured under its ice, gave but
drear companionship. Had she yielded her mind to their influence, the
desires of her heart might have been numbed to a transient despair more
nearly akin to a virtuous resignation to circumstance than the revolt
that was now rampant within her. She did not yield; she was not now
observing them; they only effected upon her inattentive senses an
impression of misery which fed the strength of revolt.