Rose had been awake for some time, listening to the ice-clad branches
that clattered with every passing breeze. A maple bough, tapping on her
window as ghostly fingers might, had first aroused her from a medley of
dreams.
She went to the window, shivering a little, and, while she stood there,
watching the faint glow in the East, the wind changed in quality, though
it was still cool. Hints of warmth and fragrance were indefinably
blended with the cold, and Rose laughed as she crept back to bed, for
she had chanced upon the mysterious hour when the Weaver of the Seasons
changed the pattern upon the loom.
Having raised another window shade, she could see the dawn from where
she lay. Tints of gold and amethyst came slowly upon the grey and made
the horizon delicately iridescent, like mother-of-pearl. Warm and soft
from the Southland, the first wind of Spring danced merrily into Madame
Francesca's sleeping garden, thrilling all the life beneath the sod.
With the first beam of sun, the ice began to drip from the imprisoned
trees and every fibre of shrub and tree to quiver with aspiration, as
though a clod should suddenly find a soul.
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