The lateral
quiver of the sun-stream, had grown so swift as to cause the dancing
semi-circle of flame to merge into, and disappear in, a sheet of fire
that covered half the Southern sky from East to West.
From the sky, I glanced down to the gardens. They were just a blur of a
palish, dirty green. I had a feeling that they stood higher, than in the
old days; a feeling that they were nearer my window, as though they had
risen, bodily. Yet, they were still a long way below me; for the rock,
over the mouth of the pit, on which this house stands, arches up to a
great height.
It was later, that I noticed a change in the constant color of the
gardens. The pale, dirty green was growing ever paler and paler, toward
white. At last, after a great space, they became greyish-white, and
stayed thus for a very long time. Finally, however, the greyness began
to fade, even as had the green, into a dead white. And this remained,
constant and unchanged. And by this I knew that, at last, snow lay upon
all the Northern world.
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