And how beautiful, how fairy-like, she was! Each fern was covered with a thin layer of the melting ice, and the crown of pink blossoms around her curly hair was frozen likewise, their fair colour persisting through the ice. Once in a while, when the sun touched her, she was a blaze of colour—of silver and gold, with here and there a splotch of brilliant red as the sun struck a red flower.
After she had found that there was nothing to be eaten except snow, she sucked a few handfuls, flavoured with the petals of the flowers which she wore. Then she went on, through paradises of silver, gold, and red, through deep hollows of shining green. Everything was something besides white, and the world that was in Eepersip’s range of vision was fairyland.
But, as she went on, clouds began to float in—little white clouds. They grew thicker and thicker, until, before she had come near the highest peak, there was nothing but pearly mist—scudding grey mist, curling into fantastic shapes as it rose. She could see nothing, and she sat down in the snow to wait. That night a gale came up, whistling and howling around the peaks, reminding Eepersip of that storm at sea. What an awesome sound it made! It sleeted, too, and when she awoke the next morning the snow was covered with a crust. The mist had partly cleared, and she pushed on again. She went through icy hollows and up on shimmering peaks, until, finally, she saw near her that long-sought summit, and, with a shout of joy, she dashed up. Fast she went, but when she really reached it at last, the mist had closed in again, the wind was up, and it was sleeting furiously. It was only through a break in the mist that she had made the summit at all.
The next morning it was still misty, but not nearly so thick. There was even a faint purple glow over on the eastern horizon where the sun was rising. Occasionally the mist would break open above, and she would see glimpses of blue sky—the deep, deep blue of that day in the meadow with Fleuriss. And lying all around on the boulders were frost-feathers. When Eepersip first saw them she thought that she was dreaming. But no, they were really there, delicate ferns and feathers with scalloped edges—ferns and feathers of frost.
“Oh, mountain-fairies—fairies have left them here,” she said quietly. Some were as long as her forearm, and others tiny—oh, so tiny; some were almost round like the inner feathers of a bird, and others long and narrow like the outer plumes. Down in a hollow were some stunted firs, laden with snow and covered with those fronds of ivory chiselled by wind-sprites, lovelier than anything Eepersip had ever seen, lovelier than anything ever made by Nature. No, Nature could never have carved them, Eepersip thought. The fairies—fairies!
Once she found a hollowed rock entirely lined with them, like a fairy’s crystal palace with strange shadowy recesses. They crowded everywhere they could find room, and sometimes, when there was no other place, rippled on the snow. They overlapped on the rocks, and hung from windward crags, pointing into the wind. And behold! Eepersip’s dress and her head were covered with small ones, like a diadem—a fairy crown and fairy ornaments. Moving gently, so as not to disturb them from where they rested, she wandered from one cluster to another, looking carefully at each one, noting each special pattern, each magic tracery. All day she followed the winding rabbit-trails amid the feathery firs.
The sun, too, had been pushing out. Now the mist opened in one direction, and Eepersip caught a fleeting glimpse of snowy peaks; but it closed again. It opened a trifle longer in another direction, and Eepersip saw, ’way down below, first low blue-green foothills and lakes golden with the sun, then higher purple hills, melting into range after range of billowing mountains, and valley after valley filled with white clouds rapidly lifting. The mist shut in. Another direction opened in the same way, with hills fading into mountains; and far off on the horizon was another range of snow mountains, lying just under great white clouds. There were clouds hanging over the valleys too, and they cast strange shadows on the sunlit trees far below. When the mist shut in, the golden lakes seemed to stay the longest, and after the mountains had entirely disappeared they could be seen as if hanging in midair, limpid pools of gold. And more sides opened, and more, the waits growing shorter in between, until, on a gust of mountain wind, the last of the mist went scudding away, banished, and the sun broke out into the blue sky. The snow sparkled, the mountains sparkled, the lakes and rivers sparkled, the frost-feathers sparkled, the air itself sparkled. And the mountains of the range that Eepersip was in, crowned with snow, gleamed like gold. Down on one side of the snowy peak dashed a great river, green and swirling, covered with clots of foam. Sometimes it would cascade over the rocks throwing up a fountain of spray, and sometimes it would slip over a smooth slide, then, whirling round and round in a rock basin, thunder down another great cliff in a shower of bubbles, rattling icicles, and foam. It cut its way through a green hollow in the snow, and where it tunnelled under the snow-banks it was overhung with long, gleaming icicles.
Eepersip danced in the snow, among the frost-feathers, all that day—danced like a mountain sprite, leaping high, then running gracefully in a shower of water-drops which flew from her as the frost-feathers melted in the warmth of the sunlight. She danced down to the
