Page:The House Without Windows.djvu/150

 in mid-air, limpid pools of gold. And more sides opened, and more, the waits growing shorter in between, until, on a gust of mountain wind, the last of the mist went scudding away, banished, and the sun broke out into the blue sky. The snow sparkled, the mountains sparkled, the lakes and rivers sparkled, the frost-feathers sparkled, the air itself sparkled. And the mountains of the range that Eepersip was in, crowned with snow, gleamed like gold. Down on one side of the snowy peak dashed a great river, green and swirling, covered with clots of foam. Sometimes it would cascade over the rocks throwing up a fountain of spray, and sometimes it would slip over a smooth slide, then, whirling round and round in a rock basin, thunder down another great cliff in a shower of bubbles, rattling icicles, and foam. It not its way through a green hollow in the snow, and where it tunnelled under the snow-hanks it was overhung with long, gleaming icicles.

Eepersip danced in the snow, among the frost-feathers, all that daydanced like a mountain sprite, leaping high, then running gracefully in a shower of water-drops which flew from her as the frost-feathers melted in the warmth of the sunlight. She danced down to the river and played there a whileplayed with the white foam.