That sleigh-drive was to Dinah the acme of delight, and for ever after the jingle of horse-bells was to recall it to her mind. The sight of the gay red trappings, the trot of the muffled hoofs, the easy motion of the sleigh slipping over the white road, and above all, Isabel, clad in purple and seated beside her, a figure of royal distinction, made a picture in her mind that she was never to forget. She rode in a magic chariot through wonderland.
She longed to delay the precious moments as they flew, like a child chasing butterflies in the sunshine; but they only seemed to fly the faster. She chattered almost incessantly for the first few miles, and occasionally Isabel smiled and answered her; but for the most part it was Scott, seated opposite, who responded to her raptures,--Scott, unfailingly attentive and courteous, but ever watchful of his sister's face.
She gazed straight ahead when she was not looking at anything to which Dinah called her attention. Her eyes had the intense look of one who watches perpetually for something just out of sight.
Quiet but alert, he marked her attitude, marked also the emaciation which was so painfully apparent in the strong sunshine and formed so piteous a contrast to the vivid youth of the girl beside her. Presently Dinah came out of her rhapsodies and observed his vigilance. She watched him covertly for a time while she still chatted on. And she noted that there were very weary lines about his eyes, lines of anxiety, lines of sleeplessness, that filled her warm heart with quick sympathy and a longing to help.
The road was one of wild beauty. It wound up a desolate mountain pass along which great black boulders were scattered haphazard like the mighty toys of a giant. The glittering snow lay all around them, making their nakedness the more apparent. And far, far above, the white crags shone with a dazzling purity in the sunlit air.
Below them the snow lay untrodden, exquisitely pure, piled here in great drifts, falling away there in wonderful curves and hollows, but always showing a surface perfect and undesecrated by any human touch. And ever the sleigh ran smoothly on over the white road till it seemed to Dinah as if they moved in a dream. She fell silent, charmed by the swift motion, and by the splendour around her.
"You are quite warm, I hope?" Scott said, after an interval.
She was wrapped in a fur cloak belonging to Isabel. She smiled an affirmative, but she saw him as through a veil. The mystery and the wonder of creation filled her soul.