'Spring is coming,' said the old sergeant that morning, as he hoisted
the storm-flag; it's getting wildlike.'
Jeannette and I went through the lessons, but towards three o'clock a
north-wind came sweeping over the Straits and enveloped the island in
a whirling snow-storm, partly eddies of white splinters torn from the
ice-bound forest, and partly a new, fall of round snow pellets
careering along on the gale, quite unlike the soft, feathery flakes of
early winter. 'You cannot go home now, Jeannette,' I said, looking out
through the little west window; our cottage stood back on the hill,
and from this side window we could see the Straits, going down toward
far Waugoschance; the steep fort-hill outside the wall; the long
meadow, once an Indian burial-place, below; and beyond on the beach
the row of cabins inhabited by the French fishermen, one of them the
home of my pupil. The girl seldom went round the point into the
village; its one street and a half seemed distasteful to her. She
climbed the stone-wall on the ridge behind her cabin, took an Indian
trail through the grass in summer, or struck across on the snow-crust
in winter, ran up the steep side of the fort-hill like a wild
chamois, and came into the garrison enclosure with a careless nod to
the admiring sentinel, as she passed under the rear entrance.
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