i 024767349a4cae9a by Unknown

from when the snow's j bar not go and take a look" Rosie said.
    * His:. on he uneven top, she shouted down, ,bar and it is different. It's beautiful.
    I've never seen this before. And away to the right the countrybbccless-than less-than pink not white; must be the sun slanting
    i wav"
    turned about then cried, "Good gracious! I can Mount the chimneys and the roofs. That must IIS-YOU mree miles away." bei of that,"
    Mrs Annie called back to her. "Tis (uy hard and bright frost. Frosts are not all l you know. Nature's got her moods through sun,
    tSo rain. Oh yes, yes, she has." A?
    gracious! I can see Wallace's farm as if it almost next door. Good Lord! We never see it down below. I suppose the wood cuts it off."
    Have)!- kept her eyes on the farm. There was some she should remember about it. She could now Lliir.
    movement over there. Someone coming into iIddi"...fSo, She was puzzled for a moment. That field 5ff"...S their property hi fact if she wasn't misiLike it led to me wood. She shook her head, then beea(31 carefully down the cleared steps, and Mrs An-vie said, 'Come on back to the house and get warmed. Robbie should be here any minute."
    She had been about to follow Mrs Anie, but the mention of Robbie halted her. In some way he was associated with the earlier conversation of her wanting to leave this place and get married. And he had a habit of probing and questioning, and getting things out of her.
    He always had. She could hear him saying, "Come on you, Rosie Steel; I don't want any painted lies, varnished truth is what I deal with." And she could hear herself responding, "You think you are clever, Robbie Macintosh, because you read books.
    ell, anybody with any sense can pinch words and sayings out of books."
    No, she didn't want to meet Robbie this morning. She couldn't explain why. Yet, she had explained why he'd get to the bottom of what was worrying her. But what was worrying her? Oh, she answered herself, just living by herself next door now the girls ere gone. But she shouldn't say that: there was Beatrice and her father. Oh, let her get away.
    She'd go for a walk. And so she said, "No, I've got to get bac I think Beatrice wants some help... in fact, I don't think it I know it. She's house mad you know. Tere's the two girls working like slaves, polishing polishing, and she would have me going round wit a duster. Can you believe it?"'
    "Oh yes, I can, dear, of Mistress Beatrice. Fro what I gather, she takes a great pride in ruling the roost. I think Cook has her belly full of her at ties."
    osie laughed at this and said "We all have o bellies full of her at times, I can tell you.
    Yet, at t
    11"" do know' feel y for her, and in tii fbndofher'
    p!- you are, dear. Of course you are. But fc tf yo're going to have that walk through i get yourself away now. If you look up,
    - the sky is changing. I shouldn't be a bit to see snow, although we generally have a were frost like this, and then the snow. But of she laughed since I've stopped running you' ate's got out of hand."
    al1 ner gently on the shoulder and she,
    *** too, said Til go out the top way, because way I'm going to climb that wall this momip off those stepping stones that Robbie's " give very precarious footholds as they are. be such a good climber I would have been . before now."
    you. Likely," said Mrs Annie as she accompato the field gate leading to the road.
    Rosie on the cheek, she stood for a pi22 her until she disappeared through a , disr wood. And as she did so she thought less-than - a lovely woman, and she's jumping out i. If only...oh, if only...
    1 beautiful in the wood. The path stretched n
    "less-than a silver river for some distance, but then 32Like it was cut off by a great barrier of frozen
    *c
    was a silence all about her. It was deep and ayiPR-LSo Even the sound of her footsteps ti ground did not intrude.
    now passing a section of the wood where tined out a ide, with low scrub between w
    them, and under which, surprisingly, the earth wa bare