HARVEST OF MY FIRST SEEDING 231 



and significant that afternoon, but a scrap of one's 

 cherished life seemed to have vanished with her, 

 completing the sense of abandonment which the 

 coming of the snow always brings about one. I had 

 an almost overpowering impulse to break through 

 my armour of philosophy, and go back and seek the 

 thing that I cared about. But the snow had 

 already obliterated the marks of our passing ; 

 the row of guardian poplars by the bluff seemed to 

 stand with arms uplifted to a vanished heaven. 

 In the intense silence, in the atmosphere of pro- 

 found sadness which has its sacred place in the heart 

 of the solitude of separation, winter swept into 

 possession of the prairie. 



