Page:The House Without Windows.djvu/149

 crags, pointing into the w ind. And behold! Eepersip's dress and her head were covered with small ones, like a diadema fairy crown and fairy ornaments. Moving gently, so as not to disturb them from where they rested, she wandered from one cluster to another, looking carefully at each one, noting each special pattern, each magic tracery. All day she followed the winding rabbit-trails amid the feathery firs.

The sun, too, had been pushing out. Now the mist opened in one direction, and Eepersip caught a fleeting glimpse of snowy peaks; but it closed again. It opened a trifle longer in another direction, and Eepersip saw, 'way down below, first low blue-green foothills and lakes golden with the sun, then higher purple hills, melting into range after range of billowing mountains, and valley after valley filled with white clouds rapidly lifting. The mist shut in. Another direction opened in the same way, with hills fading into mountains; and far off on the horizon was another range of snow mountains, lying just under great white clouds. There were clouds hanging over the valleys too, and they cast strange shadows on the sunlit trees far below. When the mist shut in, the golden lakes seemed to stay the longest. and after the mountains had entirely disappeared they could he seen as if hanging