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The orange-trees, covered from trunk to crown with white, ivory-smooth flowerets, seemed like webs of spun glass, the vegetation of one of those fantastic snow-mantled landscapes that quiver sometimes in the glass spheres of paper-weights.
It holds back the wind which seeks to chill, and by the time the sun is high and one is weary of swinging along the levels on snowshoes he may rest in comfort in the radiance. The recorded temperature may be far below freezing. The actual feel of the air in a cozy, snow-mantled nook is so genial and comforting that one wonders that the buds do not start.
Percival had provided a tea for her which had the appearance of a banquet. The table seemed sunk in flowers; a great urn held the tea. There were buns in pyramids, snow-mantled cakes, apricot jam, strawberries, clotted cream. Nothing was too good for his beloved, as he cried aloud when he saw her, fresh and glowing in her lace frock and flower-wreathed hat. "My girl and upon my soul, a picture!"
So the time passed, and Wednesday came at last, a true winter's day, with snow-mantled earth and keen, hard frost. "Don't be late in coming for me, Dick," was Winnie's parting injunction, as he saw her safely into the 'bus. "I shall expect you soon after tea." And the boy promised. The little sister looked after him as he strode briskly away.
To right and left for miles the broad valley lay beneath their eyes, the rigid line of the railway cutting a sharp, narrow slit across the level prairie in the lowlands, straight away eastward until all was merged in the misty, impenetrable veil at the horizon, while westward near the forks of the river, in long, graceful curve, it swept around an elbow of the snow-mantled stream and disappeared among the roofs and spires of far-away Braska.
Now antlered heads appeared beyond the openings between the snow-mantled trees. Oo-koo-hoo cautiously went down on one knee and there waited with his gun cocked and in position. The air was scarcely moving. Now antlered heads appeared beyond the openings between the snow-mantled trees.
Cliffs snow-mantled, and storm-ploughed sands, and dark gray billows frilled with white, rolling and roaring to the shrill east wind, made the bay of Bridlington a very different sight from the smooth fair scene of August.
The men settled down to their smoking about the crackling camp fire, and as light still remained at this high altitude, Jo decided on a stroll along the lake shore. All about stood the tall peaks, their crests snow-mantled. Over the level lowlands about the lake the silent forests of pine and fir swept away on all sides.
There was no ring of steel on the ice, nor were their voices audible. When Ruth Fielding reached the ice, the pond was deserted. "Now what could have happened to them? Where have they gone?" thought the girl. She hesitated, not alone staring about the open pond, but looking sharply on either side into the snow-mantled woods. Reno remained by her and she had a hand upon his collar.
Out among the dancing shadows that flitted among the snow-mantled bushes and heavily laden trees a hundred and fifty eyes glared in the brooding darkness as though all the wolves in the forest were gathering there. Later, when the sound of heavy breathing was heard round the fires, a fierce, wolfish-looking dog, bolder than the rest, left its snowy bed to hunt for more sheltered quarters.
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