Every day through the ten or fifteen miles of the dead forest a little snorting steamboat passed, bearing market produce and passengers.

The smoke of its funnel had blasted all sense of the weird picturesqueness of the place in the minds of the inhabitants, that is, they were accustomed to it, and sentiment in most hearts is slowly killed by use and wont, as this forest had been killed by the encroaching water.

Ann Markham's was not a mind which harboured very much sentiment at that period of her life; it was a keen, quick-witted, practical mind.

She was not afraid of the solitude of the night, or of the strange shapes and lights and shadows about her.

Now that she knew for certain that she was alone and unpursued, she was for the time quite satisfied.
A mile more down the windings of the lake, and Ann began counting the trees between certain landmarks.