"I'd love to go, Mamsey. It's such a still day, and did you ever see such sunlight?"
The release was welcome, poor Donelle still was thrashing about in her confused emotions. She was grateful that Alton was gone; she yearned to see him, and so it went.
"I'll be back as soon as I can, Mamsey. Is the basket packed?"
It was only eight o'clock when Donelle set forth. She wore her long, dark fur coat, a cowl-like hood of fur covered her pale hair, her delicate, white face shone sweetly in the soft, dusky setting. The eyes were full of sunlight but her mouth drooped pathetically.
Jo remembered the look long after the girl had departed.
"I mustn't keep her here," she reasoned; "I'm going to write again to that Mr. Law. I will wait until spring; he couldn't come now. I'm going to ask him to come up here and talk things over."
Then Mam'selle went to her loom and worked like a Fate; there were piles of wonderful things to sell. Surely they would help Donelle to her own! And so Jo worked and dreamed and feared, while Donelle made her way over the crusty snow, through the silent, holy woods, over the shining hill to the sick woman in her distant cabin.
For an hour the girl worked in the lonely house. She built a roaring fire, carried in a store of wood, fed and cheered the poor soul on her hard bed, and then turned her face toward Point of Pines.
Almost childishly she dallied by the way, trying to set her feet in the marks she had made on the way up. So interested did she become in this that it made her almost forget that queer, sad feeling in her heart.
"I'll make a new path," she decided, and that caused her to think of Tom Gavot and Alton and—the Look!