There were acres of low birch woods and lusty meadow-lands.

This morning they were covered with a gold-green dazzle of leaves.

To one looking across them, they almost seemed played over by little green flames; now and then a young birch tree stood away from the others, and shone by itself like a very torch of spring.
Mrs.Field walked steadily through it.

She had never paused to take much thought of the beauty of nature; to-day a tree all alive and twinkling with leaves might, for all her notice, have been naked and stiff with frost.
She did not seem to walk fast, but her long steps carried her over the ground well.

It was long before train-time when she came in sight of the little station with its projecting piazza roofs.