All the snow that fell on it vanished, as death and hell shall one day vanish in the fire of God.

It flowed on, black through its banks of white.
Away again stretched the shine to the town, where every roof had the sheet that was let down from heaven spread over it, and the streets lay a foot deep in yet unsullied snow, soon, like the story of the ages, to be trampled, soiled, wrought, and driven with human feet, till, at last, God's strong sun would wipe it all away.
From the door opening into this fairy-land, Alec sprang into the untrodden space, as into a new America.

He had discovered a world, without even the print of human foot upon it.

The keen air made him happy; and the face of nature, looking as peaceful as the face of a dead man dreaming of heaven, wrought in him jubilation and leaping.

He was at the school door before a human being had appeared in the streets of Glamerton.