She had not lain many minutes upon the out-growing birch before she had again forgotten her gust of revengeful fancy, and yielded herself to her 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.

A minute or two more and the recumbent position had become unendurable as too passive to correspond with the inward energy.  She clambered back, and, standing upon level ground, turned, facing the width of the bare clearing and the rough buildings on it, and looked toward the downward slope and the wild lake, whose cold breath of water was agitated by the wind.  The sky was full of cloud.

She stood up with folded arms, strength and energy in the stillness of her attitude.  She heard the sound of carpenter’s tools coming from the shed into which Bates had retired.  No other hint of humanity was in the world to which she listened, which she surveyed.  As she folded her arms she folded her bright coloured old shawl about her, and seemed to gather within its folds all warmth of colour, all warmth of feeling, that was in that wild, desolate place.