United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Still she staggered onward, slipping in the polished ruts of the sleigh-runners, plunging into the deep snow. Her body was cold as the winter itself, but her head was burning as if a fire were within it. She reached the bend, and her eyes strained wildly up the road. There! far ahead, marked black against the ghastly snow there! still moving away farther away. Would she ever reach him?

The fire burned lower; the wind in the tree-tops died away; and the thick gray clouds rolled like a massive curtain from under the skies. The stars began to glow white and metallic, and from far in the North there came faintly a crisping moaning sound, like steel sleigh-runners running over frosty snow the mysterious monotone of the Northern Lights. After that it grew steadily and swiftly colder.

It hardly seemed fair that she should monopolize so much of the world's joy. True, God knows best; but Sophie, with her forehead against the cold window-pane, prayed that Cornelia might speedily become as blessed as herself. Then she turned to go back to her chair, casting a parting glance at the white road, with the glistening track of sleigh-runners visible as far as the bend.

All the luxuries that the Tununirmiut knew came from the south driftwood for sleigh-runners, rod-iron for harpoon-tips, steel knives, tin kettles that cooked food much better than the old soap-stone affairs, flint and steel, and even matches, as well as coloured ribbons for the women's hair, little cheap mirrors, and red cloth for the edging of deerskin dress-jackets.