CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ESCAPE OF THE PRISONER Dinah spent her Sunday afternoon seated in a far corner of the verandah, inditing a very laboured epistle to her mother--a very different affair from the gay little missives she scribbled to her father every other day.
The letter to her mother was a duty which must of necessity be accomplished, and perhaps in consequence she found it peculiarly distasteful.

She never knew what to say, being uncomfortably aware that a detailed account of her doings would only give rise to drastic comment.
The glories of the mountains were wholly beyond her powers of description when she knew that any extravagance of language would be at once termed high-flown and ridiculous.

The sleigh-drive of the day before was disposed of in one sentence, and the dance of the evening could not be mentioned at all.

The memory of it was like a flame in her inner consciousness.

Her cheeks still burned at the thought, and her heart leapt with a wild longing.