SNOW 165 
alds, to rouse us for the inspection of his 
trophies. The baffled foe, retiring, has left far 
and near the high-heaped spoils behind. The 
glittering plains own the new victor. Over all 
these level and wide-swept meadows, over all 
these drifted, spotless slopes, he is proclaimed 
undisputed monarch. On the wooded hillsides 
the startled shadows are in motion; they flee 
like young fawns, bounding upward and down- 
ward over rock and dell, as through the long 
gleaming arches the sun comes marching to his 
throne. But shade yet lingers undisturbed in 
the valleys, mingled with timid smoke from 
household chimneys; blue as the smoke, a 
gauzy haze is twined around the brow of every 
distant hill; and the same soft azure confuses 
the outlines of the nearer trees, to whose 
branches snowy wreaths are clinging, far up 
among the boughs, like strange new flowers. 
Everywhere the unstained surface glistens in 
the sunbeams. In the curves and wreaths and 
turrets of the drifts a blue tinge nestles. The 
fresh pure sky answers to it; every cloud has 
vanished, save one or two which linger near the 
horizon, pardoned offenders, seeming far too 
innocent for mischief, although their dark and 
sullen brothers, banished ignominiously below 
the horizon’s verge, may be plotting nameless 
treachery there. The brook still flows visibly 
