CHAPTER XIV
THE HERALD OF SPRING
Pale season, watcher in unvexed suspense,
Still priestess of the patient middle day,
Betwixt wild March's humored petulance
And the warm wooing of green-kilted May.
—ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN.
All day the rain had poured, a real March rain, descending in chill, driving torrents. Now and then bursts of wavering sunlight broke through the storm, but the next moment the patch of blue sky was shut out by rolling gray clouds, and followed by another downpour.
In one of the brief sunlit intervals, Miss Arabella threw a shawl over her head and ran down to Long's store for a pound of tea. She was still pale and wan, as she had always been since her illness last fall; but there was a light in her eyes and an expression of quiet determination about her mouth, telling that the little lilac lady's spirit was still on guard over her secret.
It was the hour when Silas Long and his son were having their early supper, and Ella Anne kept shop. As the sharp ring of the little bell announced a customer, she came from behind the pigeon-holed partition that served as a post-office. "Oh, I say, Arabella!" she cried, turning back at the sight of the little wind-blown figure, "mind you, there's a letter for you! Who'd ever 'a' thought o' you gettin' a letter?"
Miss Arabella's sensitive face flushed. "I guess it's a boot advertisement again," she ventured. "I got one year before last."
"No, it ain't." Miss Long reappeared with the missive, examining it minutely. "Them advertising things are open, and this one's sealed. It's got writing on the inside, too, 'stead o' print; I can make that much out through the envelope, only I can't read a word of it. It's from a place called Nugget Hill. Who do you know there?"
Miss Arabella took the letter, her reticent soul shrinking from the frank inquisitiveness. "I don't know anybody," she said honestly. "I never heard of the place."
"Miss Weir was in here, a minit ago, an' I showed it to her, an' she said that was the name of a place in the Klondyke. Who on earth would be writing to you all the way from there?"