fur. Beyond this the deep water spread,
a vivid pea-green broken by wide irregular strips of dark purple. In
the open water by the wall a spatter of steel blue lay like the petals
of some strange flower, scattered upon the green.

Great splendid clouds developed, marvelously like the clouds of June,
making the girl's heart swell with memories of summer. They were white
as wool, these mountainous clouds, and bottomed in violet, and as they
passed the snow-fields they sent down pink-purple misty shadows, which
trailed away in splendor toward the green which flamed in bewildering
beauty beyond. The girl sat like one in a dream, while the wind blew
the green and purple of the outer sea into fantastic, flitting forms
which dazzled her eyes like the stream of mingled banners.

Each form seemed more beautiful than the preceding one; each
combination had such unearthly radiance, her heart ached with
exquisite sorrow to see it vanish. The girl felt that spring was
coming on the wing of the southern wind, and the desire to utter her
passion grew almost into pain.

It had other moods, this mighty spread of water. It could be angry,
dangerous. Sometimes it rolled sullenly, and convoluted in oily surges
beneath its coverlid of snow, like a bed of monstrous serpents.
Sometimes the leaden sky shut down over it, and from the desolate
northeast a snow-storm rushed, hissing and howling. Sometimes it
slumbered for days, quiet as a sleeping boa, then awoke and was a
presence and a voice in the night, fit to make the hardiest tremble.

Rose saw it when it was roused, but she had yet to see it in a frenzy.
The knowledge of its worst came to her early in May, just before her
return to the Coule.

The day broke with the wind in the northeast. Rose, lying in her bed,
could hear the roar of the lake; never before had its voice penetrated
so far. She sprang up and dressed, eager to see it in such a mood.
Mary responded sleepily to her call, saying the lake would be there
after breakfast.

Rose did not regret her eagerness, though it was piercingly cold and
raw. The sea was already terrific. Its spread of tawny yellow showed
how it had reached down and laid hold on the sand of its bed. There
were oily splotches of plum color scattered over it where the wind
blew it smooth, and it reached to the wild east sky, cold, desolate,
destructive.

It had a fierce, breathing snarl like a monster at meat. It leaped
against the sea-wall like a rabid