For, as Amelia had been telling herself for the last three months,
since she had begun to outgrow the habit of a dual life, she was not
old. Whenever she looked in the glass, she could not help noting how
free from wrinkles her swarthy face had been kept, and that the line of
her mouth was still scarlet over white, even teeth. Her crisp black
hair, curling in those tight fine rolls which a bashful admirer had
once commended as "full of little jerks," showed not a trace of gray.
All this evidence of her senses read her a fair tale of the
possibilities of the morrow; and without once saying, "I will take up a
new life," she did tacitly acknowledge that life was not over.
It was a "snapping cold" night of early spring, so misplaced as to
bring with it a certain dramatic excitement. The roads were frozen
hard, and shone like silver in the ruts. All day sleds had gone
creaking past, set to that fine groaning which belongs to the music of
the year. The drivers' breath ascended in steam, the while they stamped
down the probability of freezing, and yelled to Buck and Broad until
that inner fervor raised them one degree in warmth. The smoking cattle
held their noses low, and swayed beneath the yoke.
Amelia, shut snugly in her winter-tight house, had felt the power of
the day without sharing its discomforts; and her eyes deepened and
burned with a sense of the movement and warmth of living.
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