There was a light
powdering of snow on grass and trees. Yet still there were breathings
and bird-notes in the air, and tones of color in the distance, which
obscurely prophesied the spring. Through the wood behind the house the
snow-drops were rising, in a white invading host, over the ground
covered with the red-brown deposit of innumerable autumns. Above their
glittering white, rose an undergrowth of laurels and box, through which
again shot up the magnificent trunks--gray and smooth and round--of the
great beeches, which held and peopled the country-side, heirs of its
ancestral forest. Any one standing in the wood could see, through the
leafless trees, the dusky blues and rich violets of the encircling
hill--hung there, like the tapestry of some vast hall; or hear from time
to time the loud wings of the wood-pigeons as they clattered through the
topmost boughs.
Diana was still in the village. She had been spending her hour of escape
mostly with the Roughsedges. The old doctor among his books was now
sufficiently at his ease with her to pet her, teach her, and, when
necessary, laugh at her. And Mrs. Roughsedge, however she might feel
herself eclipsed by Lady Lucy, was, in truth, much more fit to minister
to such ruffled feelings as Diana was now conscious of than that
delicate and dignified lady.
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