she seemed a fugitive, fleeing across the world with no city or refuge
to flee into.

Miss Clomber's approach made her start.

'A word with you!' said Miss Clomber in her brisk, unsympathetic voice.
'I saw you with Mr. Reddin twice. I just wanted to say in a sisterly
and Christian spirit'--she lowered her voice to a hollow whisper--'that
he is not a good man.'

'Well,' said Hazel, with a sigh of relief in the midst of her shyness
and her oppression about the mountain, 'that's summat, anyway!'

Miss Clomber, outraged and furious, strode away.

Hazel was again left to the hills. The taciturnity of winter was upon
them still, and in the sky beyond was the cynical aloofness that comes
with frost after sunset.

She turned from them to the lighted tent. The golden glow was like some
bright creature imprisoned. Abel had prorogued an interminable argument
with the old man with the elf-locks, and now began thrumming inside the
tent.

Young men and women converged upon it at the sound of the music, as
flies flock to the osier blossom. They went in, as the blessed to
Paradise. The canvas began to sway and billow in the wind of the
dancing. Hazel felt that life was going on gaily without her--she shut
away in the dark. Her feet began to dance.