It was staring noon when, the house singing like an empty
shell in the monotonous wind, she felt she could stand the solitude no
longer, and, crossing the glaring _patio_ and whistling corridor, made
her way to the open gateway.
But the view without seemed to intensify her desolation. The broad
expanse of the shadowless plain reached apparently to the Coast Range,
trackless and unbroken save by one or two clusters of dwarfed oaks,
which at that distance were but mossy excrescences on the surface,
barely raised above the dead level. On the other side the marsh took up
the monotony and carried it, scarcely interrupted by undefined
water-courses, to the faintly marked-out horizon line of the remote
bay. Scattered and apparently motionless black spots on the meadows
that gave a dreary significance to the title of "the Crows" which the
rancho bore, and sudden gray clouds of sandpipers on the marshes, that
rose and vanished down the wind, were the only signs of life. Even the
white sail of the early morning was gone.
She stood there until the aching of her straining eyes and the
stiffening of her limbs in the cold wind compelled her to seek the
sheltered warmth of the courtyard.
Pages:
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444