Now and then sitting a little apart from the group and fiercely engaged with her knitting, Miss Patricia, after listening to the reading aloud for half an hour or more, would glance from Mrs. Burton to the girl who managed always to be nearer to her than any one else, and observing the expression on the usually colorless and listless face, would rise abruptly and stalk out of the room. Occasionally Mrs. Burton would follow her, but never was Miss Patricia persuaded to return.
CHAPTER XVIII
Spring
Early spring had arrived in the Adirondack forests. Little pools of water lay in patches amid the snow where the sun’s rays shone with especial warmth; down the sides of the mountains one could hear the sounds of brooks released from the winter fastness. Thin cakes of ice still were floating on the surface of Half Moon Lake, yet in the open spaces of clear water one could see the reflection of the spruce trees which all winter had stood sentinel.
Now and then a water fowl appeared and stopped to drink, and from deeper in the woods occasionally there was a bird call, poignant and sweet, and the barking of young foxes at night, the beavers, having come forth from their seclusion, were again at work on new dams to meet the spring freshets.
On the veranda in front of Tahawus cabin Sally Ashton in a golden brown sweater and tam-o-shanter was sweeping away light patches of snow. Standing in the open doorway Alice Ashton and Bettina Graham were talking to their Camp Fire guardian, who was walking rapidly up and down.
“I don’t see why such a display of energy, Tante, unless you are trying to keep warm. Isn’t it a heavenly day?”
Mrs. Burton nodded and laughed.
“I am trying to reduce my weight, Princess, after so indolent a winter. But it is wonderful to be alive on a day like this and to feel so extraordinarily well!”
The Camp Fire guardian walked to the centre of the veranda and paused for a moment, looking out at the landscape. The sun appeared to be shining with a strange brightness as if it also was feeling the year’s new birth. The sky was radiantly blue.
At this moment there was a faint noise of a pony’s hoofs striking against the stones in the road and the next the Camp Fire pony, hitched to a small wagon, appeared in a turn of the road about an eighth of a mile away.