carried out his
purpose, and sailed for Europe. Till at least a year had gone by he
would not try to see Lois; Mrs. Barclay should have a year at least to
push her beneficent influence and bring her educational efforts to some
visible result; he would keep away; but it would be much easier to keep
away if the ocean lay between them, and he went to Florence and
northern Italy and the Adriatic.

Meanwhile the winter had "flown on soft wings" at Shampuashuh. Every
day seemed to be growing fuller and richer than its predecessors; every
day Lois and Madge were more eager in the search after knowledge, and
more ready for the reception of it. A change was going on in them, so
swift that Mrs. Barclay could almost see it from day to day. Whether
others saw it I cannot tell; but Mrs. Marx shook her head in the fear
of it, and Charity opined that the family "might whistle for a garden,
and for butter and cheese next summer." Precious opportunity of winter
days, when no gardening nor dairy work was possible! and blessed long
nights and mornings, after sunset and before sunrise, when no housework
of any sort put in claims upon the leisure of the two girls. There were
no interruptions from without. In Shampuashuh, society could not be
said to flourish. Beyond an occasional "sewing society" meeting, and a
much more rare gathering for purely social purposes, nothing more than
a stray caller now and then broke the rich quiet of those winter days;
the time for a tillage, and a sowing, and a growth far beyond in
preciousness all "the precious things put forth by the sun" in the more
genial time of the year. But days began to become longer, nevertheless,
as the weeks went on; and daylight was pushing those happy mornings and
evenings into lesser and lesser compass; and snow quite disappeared
from the fields, and buds began to swell on the trees and take colour,
and airs grew more gentle in temperature; though I am bound to say
there is a sharpness sometimes in the nature of a Shampuashuh spring,
that quite outdoes all the greater rigours of the winter that has gone.

"The frost is out of the ground!" said Lois one day to her friend.

"Well," said Mrs. Barclay innocently; "I suppose that is a good thing."

Lois went on with her drawing, and made no answer.

But soon Mrs. Barclay began to perceive that less reading and studying
were done; or else some drawing lingered on its way towards completion;
and the deficits became more and more s