Before her from the crest of the low hill, the lower pond at last spread out its glittering oval, sprinkled now with the black figures of skaters moving round and round with a soft rhythmic motion. The crisp air rang with the distant sound of steel upon ice. It was a queer, muted sound, like the music of violins in a far-off orchestra. For a moment Ellen stood quietly among the trees contemplating the distant black figures, as if she stood, a goddess, upon some Olympian peak regarding the spectacle of Man; and then with a sudden bound, she ran down the long slope and in a little cove sheltered from the wind, fastened her skates, and sprang forward on to the glistening ice.
She skated superbly. The lines of her young body, so slender, so sinuous, so strong, despite all the awkwardness of her clothes, stood revealed in the triumphant swing of her strokes. Here in her own hidden cove, she gave full rein to the wild, secret ecstasy of a proud, shy soul. Now she flew ahead into the biting wind; now she halted, pirouetting in a wild freedom; now, with a careless grace, she skated backward for a time, and presently she fell to practising with the precision of an artist one intricate figure after another. In this lonely backwater, she must have skated thus, triumphing in her skill and grace, for more than an hour; and at length, when she had accomplished each figure with perfection, she glided to the bank and, removing her skates, set about gathering sticks. In another moment she had lighted a fire and sat down by the side of it, her hair streaming, her cheeks bright with the cold, to warm her hands and sit staring into the blaze. Drifting up the sinuous curves of the pond, the sound of skating still floated toward her, but of this she no longer appeared to take any notice. She sat thoughtfully, ignoring it, and presently the color began a little to recede from her cheek and the old expression of restlessness to steal back into her dark eyes. The hills shut her in now, as if they might imprison her in their brooding fashion forever.
She had been sitting thus for more than an hour, apparently in profound thought, when slowly she became aware that the soli-
