From a meadow at the top of a hill, a girl watched the horizon of the
east as the first glow of daylight heralded the arrival of Aurora's
chariot. The hurried walk from the mill-house and the climbing of the
hill had set her pulses throbbing with vitality, and as she watched the
dull gray give way with the promise of dawn, a wild, unthinking spirit
of exaltation seized her. Like the Pippa of Browning's song, she felt
her spirit rise with the triumph of nature.
Day!
Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.
But he had not come--her Prince with the solemn face and the laughing
eyes. Day after day, through the long winter, she had lived for this
hour, thrilling over it, picturing it, dreaming of it--both awake and
asleep.... And he had not come.