unfinished soul that was looking out so intently through the
brown eyes. 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; Margret laughed at herself for it,
and turned to watch the slow morning-struggle which Lois followed
with such eager eyes.

The light was conquering. 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 vapour
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. Victory: it
was in the cold, pure ether filling the heavens, in the solemn
gladness of the hills. The great forests thrilling in the soft
light, the very sleepy river wakening under the mist, chorded
with a grave bass in the rising anthem of welcome to the new life
which God had freshly given to the world. From the sun himself,