She changed her seat, and drew down the blind that faced the drift; yet it had a strange fascination for her none the less, and many times in the day she would go and peep through the blind, and shiver, and then come away moaning in a little way that she had when she was alone.

It was pitiful to see how she shrank from the cold,--the tender creature who seemed born to live and bloom with the flowers, perhaps to wither with them.

Sometimes it seemed to her as if she could not bear it, as if she must run away and find the birds, and the green and joyous things that she loved.

The pines were always green, it is true, in the little grove across the way; but it was a solemn and gloomy green, to her child's mind,--she had not yet learned to love the steadfast pines.

Sometimes she would open the door with a wild thought of flying out, of flying far away, as the birds did, and rejoining them in southern countries where the sun was warm, and not a fire that froze while it lighted one.