Page:The House Without Windows.djvu/144

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brooklet full of icicles, winding through the long ravine and dashing over the green slimy rocks in great cascades of rattling icicles and foam. Eepersip drank deeply, and was refreshed.

Then, after resting a few moments, she went on, up that steep wall of snow and rock which would take her to the longed-for summit. Eepersip counted sixteen brooklets rushing down over it, tarrying hundreds of icicles with their currents, foaming and dashing with spray and myriads of shiny iridescent bubbles.

Across brook after brook she went, watching the colours change in the dazzling snowflakes. The sun was shining brilliantly now, making everything unimaginably beautiful in magnificent shades of ruby, copper, silver-gold, emerald, and sapphire. Each snowflake seemed covered with an almost invisible layer of they sparkling gems. And once, when Eepersip sat down in a deep snow-bank to watch and to rest, the sun happened to strike directly on one of the many brooklets that went dashing down the mountain-side, making it a blinding ribbon of silver and gold. Occasionally Eepersip saw the blossoms of the beautiful talatuna, with ruby-red leaves and blossoms of pale green and changing white. She thought that the leaves were all red, but when the wind flipped one over she saw