n them than on bare ground. She trod over the tops of the
deep drifts with an accentuation of her usual strong free step.

The snow fell thickly and steadily, a cold, finely-spun, straight-hung
curtain, veiling all the muffled sleeping valley. There was an
inconceivable silence about her as she drew her snow-shoes over the
velvet-like masses of the snow. But within her were ringing echoes of
the rhythms and cadences of the afternoon's struggle, imperfectly sung
most of them, haltingly, or dully, or feebly, or with a loud
misunderstanding of the phrase. At the recollection of these failures,
she clenched her hands hard inside her fur gloves with an indomitable
resolution to draw something better from her singers the next time.

But mingled with them was a moment of splendor. It was when the men had
tried over the passage she had explained to them the week before. She
had not known then, she did not know now, how clearly or definitely she
had reached them with her summary of the situation of the drama: the
desperate straits of the Israelites after the three-year drought, the
trial by fire and water before the scorning aristocracy, Elijah stark
and alone against all the priesthood of Baal, the extremity of despair
of the people . . . and then the coming of the longed-for rain that
loosened the terrible tension and released their hearts in the great
groaning cry of thanksgiving. She had wondered how clearly or definitely
she had reached their understanding, but she knew that she had reached
their hearts, when suddenly she had heard all those men's voices pealing
out, pure and strong and solemn and free, as she had dreamed that phrase
could be sung.

[Illustration: Thanks be to God! He laveth the thirsty land.]

The piercing sweetness of the pleasure this had brought to her came over
her again in a wave. She halted on the crest of the hill, and for a
moment in place of the purples and blues of the late snowy afternoon
there hung before her eyes the powerful, roughly clad bodies of those
vigorous men, their weather-beaten faces, their granite impassivity,
under which her eye had caught the triumph of the moment, warming them
as it did her, with the purest of joys this side of heaven, the
consciousness of having made music worthily. The whole valley seemed to
be filled to its brim with that shout of exultation. It had taken all of
her patience, and will-power, and knowledge of her art and of these
people to achieve that mom