But soon her old reckless self triumphed. "Of course what I am doing will seem awful to him," she thought. "I knew that before I commenced. He shall not preach me out of my fun in one half-hour. If I could make him love me in spite of what I am, it would be the greater triumph. After all, I am only acting as all the girls in my set do when they get a chance. It's not as bad as he makes out."
Still that was an eventful half-hour, when they looked out upon a transfigured world together; and while she saw nature in her rarest and purest beauty, she had also been given a glimpse into the more beautiful world of truth, where God dwells.
But, as the morning advanced, good impulses and better feelings and thoughts vanished, even as the snow-wreaths were dropping from branch and spray, leaving them as bare as before. By the time the sleigh drove up to the door she was as bent as ever upon victimizing the "Western giant," as the conspirators had named him. She was her old, decided, resolute self; all the more resolute because facing, to her, a new hindrance,—her own conscience, which Hemstead had unwittingly awakened; and it said to its uncomfortable possessor some rather severe things that day.
If Lottie were Bel Parton, she would have been in a miserably undecided state. But it was her nature to carry out what she had begun, if for no other reason than that she had begun it, and she was not one to give up a frolic at anyone's scolding,—even her own.
As she tripped down the broad stairs in a rich cloak trimmed with fur, she reminded Hemstead of some rare tropical bird, and De Forrest indulged in many notes of admiration. Lottie received these as a matter of course, but looked at the student with genuine interest. His expression seemed to satisfy her, for she turned away to hide a smile that meant mischief.
It was quietly arranged that Hemstead should sit beside her, and he felicitated himself over their artifice as if it were rare good fortune.
Though the sun and the rising breeze had shaken off the clustering snow to a great extent, the evergreens still bent beneath their beautiful burdens, some straight cedars reminding one of vigorous age, where snowy hair and beard alone suggest the flight of years.
Though the face of nature was so white, it was not the face of death. There was a sense of movement and life which was in accord with their own spirits and rapid motion. Snow-birds fluttered and twittered in weedy thickets by the way-side, breakfasting on the seeds that fell like black specks upon the snow. The bright sunlight had lured the red squirrels from their moss-lined nests in hollow trees, and their barking was sometimes heard above the chime of the bells.
"There goes a parson crow," cried Addie Marchmont. "How black and solemn he looks against the snow!"
"Why are crows called parsons, Mr. Hemstead?" asked Lottie, as a child might.