Anna Chapin Ray

“ All that glorious, clean, clear afternoon, he had been sleighing with Day, out past Sainte Foy church to Cap Rouge and home by the Sillery Road. In the still, cold air, the snow had squeaked beneath the horses' hoofs, the bells had rung out crisply, and the dropping sun had cast long bluish shadows across the glistening fields. Then the sun had fallen through the yellow west, and the golden afterglow had risen up to meet the licking tongues of the aurora, until both afterglow and aurora had lost their lustre before the dazzling circle of the winter moon. ”

“ Thither she was wont to retire to recover her lost temper, to grieve over her girlish sorrows, to dream dreams of future glory, and, often and often, to lie passive and watch the white clouds drift this way and that in the great blue arch above her. No human being, not even Hubert himself, could have told so much of Theodora's inner life as this old apple-tree, if only the power of speech had been granted it. ”

“ Scott only saw four faces, grouped in perspective: his mother, tearful, a little tremulous, yet radiant in her full content; behind her, two of the visiting clergy, classmates and chums of the divinity school, and, still behind these two, the eager young face of the curly-headed rector of the many hyphens, the man who first had opened his eyes to a brand-new gospel, one of fatherly affection, not of pursuant wrath, a gospel elastic as the mind of man, plastic as the flowing life of all the ages, not a hard and fast affair whose boundaries were laid down for all time, hundreds of years before. ”

“ But, beyond the gray, relentless flowing, there rose the stately cliffs of Lévis, solid, permanent and bathed in a glow of mingled purple and gold.
As they rounded the Cove with its rotting, moss-grown piers, and reached the point whence Champlain Street runs in a straight-cut line at the base of the cliff, St. Jacques came out of his silence, and began to talk once more. At first, Nancy stared at him in amazement. In all their acquaintance, she had seen him in no such mood of rattling gayety. ”

“ In the early twilight of the stormy day, the room was growing dark. As Bess stooped to say good-by to the boy, she was surprised to feel the hot tears on his cheeks. Sitting down on the edge of the sofa, she drew his head over into her lap, and stroked his face in silence, for she felt no words could comfort the little lad.
“If you only needn’t go,” he said. “It all seems so much easier when you are here. Miss Bessie, I can’t stand it ! What shall I do?”
“Fred, I know it is hard, so very hard. I wish I could stay with you always, if you want me. But I will truly come again in a day or two. ”