brows of rock; but the soaring peaks above were purely, ethereally white. Already, however, the sunbeams of this summerlike day following the night’s hard frost were at work upon the mountain-tops; and from the highest points were to be seen already floating those little flying pennons of silvery cloud that, as the day advanced, would build another mountain-wall of white air above the snows of earth.
Clank! Clank! Millicent turned her head. An old man was coming up the road from the factory: a very old man, bent low beneath a wooden yoke, from either side of which depended a kerosene-tin, full of skim-milk. He smiled and nodded to Millicent, but did not recognise her; she, however, knew him. It was “Old Mercer,” once, in the old, pre-certificate days, school-teacher of the district. Now, in his eightieth year, he kept the wolf from the door, and himself from the Old Men’s Refuge (he had forfeited his claim to the pension by a few years’ residence in Australia), by means of a few cows; but he had no horse, and was forced to carry his laborious loads himself to and from the factory. “Poor old man!” Millicent said to herself, with a pang of pity—in reality, quite unneeded. With his dog and his liberty, old Mercer, as a matter of fact, was a good deal happier than most people.
His coming had roused her from her reverie. It was time to go back, and she began to retrace her steps. The road now wore quite a different aspect—it was populated. A number of milk-carts were rolling heavily towards the factory; their bright cans glittered in the sun, and the horses’ hides showed finely glossy. It was getting on for
