frozen lake; but she knew in truth that such departure was as dependent
on the submission of his will to hers as was her going in the more
natural way by boat the next day, for the track of her snow-shoes and
the slowness of her journey upon them would always keep her within his
power.

The girl contemplated the falling flakes and her own immediate future at
the same moment. The one notion clear to her mind was, that she must get
away from that place before the cold had time to enchain the lake, or
these flakes to turn the earth into a frozen sea. Her one hope was in
the boat that would be launched to carry her dead father. She must go.
_She must go!_

Youth would not be strong if it did not seek for happiness with all its
strength, if it did not spurn pain with violence. All the notions that
went to make up this girl's idea of pain were gathered from her present
life of monotony and loneliness. All the notions that went to make up
her idea of happiness were culled from what she had heard and dreamed of
life beyond her wilderness. Added to this there was the fact that the
man who had presumed to stand between her and the accomplishment of the
first strong volition of her life had become intolerable to her--whether
more by his severity or by his kindliness she could not tell. She folded
her shawl-draped arms more strongly across her breast, and hugged to
herself all the dreams and desires, hopes and dislikes, that had grown
within her as she had grown in mind and stature in that isolated place.

How could she accomplish her will?

The flakes fell upon the copper gloss of her uncombed hair, on face and
hands that reddened to the cold, and gathered in the folds of the shawl.