At length the
dreariness of an ended tale was about him, and he felt the inactivity
to which he had been compelled all day no longer tolerable. He would go
and see how his snow-chamber looked by candlelight. His mother had told
him not to go out; but that, he reasoned, could hardly be called going
out, when there was not more than a yard of open air to cross. So he
got a candle, was out of the window in a moment, notwithstanding his
lameness, and crept through the long vault of snow towards the inmost
recess. As he approached the end he started. Could he believe his eyes?
A figure was there--motionless--dead perhaps. He went on--he went
in--and there he saw Annie, leaning against the white wall, with her
white face turned up to the frozen ceiling. She might have been the
frost-queen, the spirit that made the snow, and built the hut, and
dwelt in it; for all the powers that vivify nature must be children.
The popular imagination seems to have caught this truth, for all the
fairies and gnomes and goblins, yes, the great giants too, are only
different sizes, shapes, and characters of children. But I have
wandered from Alec's thoughts into my own. He knew it was Annie, and no
strange creature of the elements.
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