And Joe looked up and yawned sleepily, just as if he had been awakened from his forenoon’s nap.
Boy ate his dinner in silence. When he arose he glanced at Gloss. She was standing before the window, and Boy saw her perfect face, crowned by a mass of heavy chestnut hair, clear-lined against the light of an outer world. Her great eyes were looking into space: she was dreaming. The young man sought the open with surging pulse. The whistle of Hallibut’s mill sounded its challenge, and, squaring his broad shoulders, he laughed. Something new had come to him. Not strength; though strength was of it. Not defiance; though it held the power to defy. Boy did not attempt to define that new thing: it was enough for him to know that he possessed it.
CHAPTER VIII
Through the Deep Wood
Gloss, standing in the kitchen doorway, gazed outward across the bronze-tipped trees to the drab-colored sky resting above Rond Eau.
There was a smile on her lips and her eyes were alive with the light of genuine girlish happiness. She did not know why she should be so glad; but to-day she felt like singing; like racing out into the hardwoods and tramping the long leaf-carpeted aisles. She wanted to be out in the open. A flock of wild geese wedged their way between two tiny strips of blue sky and were lost in a heavy snow-cloud above the Point. The girl clapped her hands joyfully and, springing backward like a young gazelle, she snatched her cap from a peg and tiptoed into the inner room.
Granny McTavish looked up from her knitting, a smile on her wrinkled face.
“Lass,” she said softly, “but ye are gettin’ mair like your dear mither every day. And she was bonnie, aye, she was bonnie, lassie.”
The girl sank on her knees and took the old hands in hers.
“Am I like my mother, Granny?” she asked eagerly. “Very like her?”
“Aye, dearie, ye have her eyes and ye have her beautiful hair; ye have her face and ye have her smile. Ye tak me awa back to the time I first saw your mither, Gloss. Ye will na gangin’ oot i’ th’ snaw, pet,” noting with concern that Gloss had on her cap and coat. “I ne’er lak ta see ye ramblin’ aboot i’ th’ woods after th’ snaw falls on account o’ th’ wolves, cheeld.”