CHAPTER XX

A ROYAL CAPTIVE


In the midst of this dreary transition period Nature gave proof that she
has unlimited materials of beauty at her command at any time. Early one
afternoon the brothers were driven in from their outdoor labors by a cold,
sleety rain, and Leonard predicted an ice-storm. The next morning the world
appeared as if heavily plated with silver. The sun at last was unclouded,
and as he looked over the top of Storm King his long-missed beams
transformed the landscape into a scene of wonder and beauty beyond anything
described in Johnnie's fairy tales. Trees, shrubs, the roofs and sidings of
the buildings, the wooden and even the stone fences, the spires of dead
grass, and the unsightly skeletons of weeds, were all incased in ice and
touched by the magic wand of beauty. The mountain-tops, however, surpassed
all other objects in the transfigured world, for upon them a heavy mist had
rested and frozen, clothing every branch and spray with a feathery
frost-work of crystals, which, in the sun-lighted distance, was like a
great shock of silver hair. There were drawbacks, however, to this
marvellous scene. There were not a few branches already broken from the
trees, and Mr. Clifford said that if the wind rose the weight of the ice
would cause great destruction. They all hastened through breakfast, Leonard
and Webb that they might relieve the more valuable fruit and evergreen
trees of the weight of ice, and Burt and Amy for a drive up the mountain.

As they slowly ascended, the scene under the increasing sunlight took on
every moment more strange and magical effects. The ice-incased twigs and
boughs acted as prisms, and reflected every hue of the rainbow, and as