The glittering face in the hollow of the great drift lost its watchful look, softened, grew dim and blurred; one morning it was gone.

That day Marie sang a little song, the first she had sung through all the long, cruel season.

She drew up the blind and gazed out; she wrapped a shawl round her head and went and stood at the door, afraid of nothing now, not even thinking of making those tiresome horns.

She was aware of something new in the air she breathed.

It was still cold, but with a difference; there was a breathing as of life, where all had been dry, cold death.