She knitted and Eugene read, bending his handsome dark face, smiling with pleasure, over his Shakespeare book.

This fierce winter day he was reading "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," and letting his fancy revel with Shakespeare's fairies in an enchanted summer wood.

He was, however, alert as a watch-dog.

He could at an instant's warning leave that delicate and dainty crew and those flowery shores, and intercept his sister, should she attempt to pass him and escape from the house.
Still, his alertness all came to naught, for Madelon, like some fleeing fox, took a sudden turn which no canny hunter could have anticipated.

She sat somewhat away from the hearth and well at Eugene's back.