Page:An orchard princess (IA orchardprincess00barbiala).pdf/214



The earth rang underfoot like metal, but overhead was an April sky, a sky as deep a blue as ever arched over Venice. Not a cloud flecked it. The sunlight bathed the brown fields and russet meadows with plate of gold and sprinkled the furrows with diamonds where the frost-crystals lay. The air was at once mellow and pungent, like old wine newly spiced. Here and there, along the shadowed lees of banks or 'neath the tangles of wayside bushes, lay little drifts of snow, winter's seals of possession. The maples across the ravine were stark and silent, but along the borders of the fields sentinel cedars stood erect and watchful in green uniforms. On southern slopes the grass still held its summer hue, and against the warm gray hole of a withered beech a tiny woodpecker beat a cheerful tattoo. It