Their delicate gray tints spread in masses over the hillsides like a transparent, gray veil, through which every outline of the hills was clear, but softened.

The massive pines and spruces looked almost black against the white of the snow, and the whole landscape was at once shining and sombre; an effect which is peculiar to the New England winter in the hill country, and is always either very depressing or very stimulating to the soul.

Dreamy and inert and phlegmatic people shiver and huddle, see only the sombreness, and find the winter one long imprisonment in the dark.

But to a joyous, brisk, sanguine soul, the clear, crisp, cold air is like wine; and the whiteness and sparkle and shine of the snow are like martial music, a constant excitement and spell.
Mercy's soul thrilled within her with new delight and impulse each day.
The winter had always oppressed her before.

On the seashore, winter means raw cold, a pale, gray, angry ocean, fierce winds, and scanty wet snows.
This brilliant, frosty air, so still and dry that it never seemed cold, this luxuriance of snow piled soft and high as if it meant shelter and warmth,--as indeed it does,--were very wonderful to Mercy.