an unusually early winter was beginning to
set in. The weather grew bitterly cold, and already a powdering of snow
was on the fell-tops. For all that, Nelly could never drink deep enough
of the November beauty, as it shone upon the fells through some bright
frosty days. The oaks were still laden with leaf; the fern was still
scarlet on the slopes; and the ghylls and waterfalls leapt foaming white
down their ancestral courses. And in this austerer world, Nelly's
delicate personality, as though braced by the touch of winter, seemed to
move more lightly and buoyantly. She was more vividly interested in
things and persons--in her drawing, her books, her endless knitting and
sewing for the wounded. She was puzzled that Bridget stayed so long in
town, but alack! she could do very well without Bridget. Some portion of
the savour of life, of that infinity of small pleasures which each day
may bring for the simple and the pure in heart, was again hers.
Insensibly the great wound was healing. The dragging anguish of the
first year assailed her now but rarely.

One morning she opened the windows in the little sitting-room, to let in
the sunshine, and the great spectacle of the Pikes wrapped in majestic
shadow, purple-black, with the higher peaks ranged in a hierarchy of
light behind them.

She leant far out of the window, breathing in the tonic smell of the oak
leaves on the grass beneath her, and the freshness of the mountain air.
Then, as she turned back to the white-walled raftered room with its
bright fire, she was seized with the pleasantness of this place which
was now her home. Insensibly it had captured her heart, and her senses.
And who was it--what contriving brain--had designed and built it up, out
of the rough and primitive dwelling it had once been?

Of course, William Farrell had done it all! There was scarcely a piece
of furniture, a picture, a book, that was not of his choosing and
placing. Little by little, they had been gathered round her. His hand
had touched and chosen them, every one. He took far more pleasure and
interest in the details of these few rooms than in any of his own
houses and costly possessions.

Suddenly--as she sat there on the window-ledge, considering the room,
her back to the mountains--one of those explosions of consciousness
rushed upon Nelly, which, however surprising the crash, are really long
prepared and inevitable.

What did that room really _mean_--the artistic and subtle simpl