e it was a
strange and a dreadful thing to see. Night and morning, in the cold
blue light of the winter moon and the bright hard glitter of the winter
sun, the face was always there, gazing in at her through the window,
seeing everything she did, perhaps--who could tell?--seeing everything
she thought. She changed her seat, and drew down the blind that faced
the drift; yet it had a strange fascination for her none the less, and
many times in the day she would go and peep through the blind, and
shiver, and then come away moaning in a little way that she had when
she was alone. It was pitiful to see how she shrank from the
cold,--the tender creature who seemed born to live and bloom with the
flowers, perhaps to wither with them. Sometimes it seemed to her as if
she could not bear it, as if she must run away and find the birds, and
the green and joyous things that she loved. The pines were always
green, it is true, in the little grove across the way; but it was a
solemn and gloomy green, to her child's mind,--she had not yet learned
to love the steadfast pines. Sometimes she would open the door with a
wild thought of flying out, of flying far away, as the birds did, and
rejoining them in southern countries where the sun was warm, and not a
fire that froze while it lighted one. So cold! so cold! But when she
stood thus, the little wild heart beating fiercely in her, the icy
blast would come and chill her into quiet again, and turn the blood
thick, so that it ran slower in her veins; and she would think of the
leagues and leagues of pitiless snow and ice that lay between her and
the birds, and would close the door again, and go back to her work with
that little weary moan.

Her husband was very kind in these days; oh, very kind and gentle. He
kept the dark moods to himself, if they came upon him, and tried even
to be gay, though he did not know how to set about it. If he had ever
known or looked at a child, this poor man, he would have done better;
but it was not a thing that he had ever thought of, and he did not yet
know that Marie was a child. Sometimes when she saw him looking at her
with the grave, loving, uncomprehending look that so often followed her
as she moved about, she would come to him and lay her head against his
shoulder, and remain quiet so for many minutes; but when he moved to
stroke her dark head, and say, "What is it, Mary? what troubles you?"
she could only say that it was cold, very cold, an