Nature, when the labours of the year are over, sinks to
rest beneath her fleecy coverings, lulled to sleep in the kindly, yet
frosty, arms of the Northern tempest. What wild weird lullabies are
sung to her unheeding ears, dulled by the lethargy of sleep. How early
falls the darkness, and how late the long night lingers, the better to
ensure repose to the sweet mistress of the earth! How bright the
starry eyes of heaven keeping watch above her rest!
The Macleods had settled in a furnished house, through which Rose had
already diffused the charm of her dainty personality. She was kneeling
before the hearth, like a young fire-worshipper, one snowy afternoon,
and thinking a little drearily that the close environment of a
snow-storm in town rendered it almost as lonely as the country, when a
visitor was announced, the sound of whose name seemed to make the
solitude populous. It was Allan Dunlop, whom she instantly forgave for
so soon availing himself of her permission to call, when she realized
how welcome a break his coming made in the cheerless monotony of the
day. He caught a glimpse of bright hair against a background of
blazing logs, and then she came forward to meet him, not eagerly, not
shyly, but with a charming manner in which both eagerness and shyness
were suggested.
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