When you see what appears to be a smooth green
space above the lower brown-colored belt of copper beech, that is not a
moss-covered stretch of open land, but the closely packed tops of young
trees, where a new tract has been bared by an avalanche."
She was in no mood this morning to assimilate the marvels of Hanover
Island. Her brain had been cleared, restored to the normal, by
refreshing sleep. With a more active perception of the curious
difficulties which beset the _Kansas_ came a feeling akin to despair.
The brightness of nature served rather to convert the ship into a
prison. Storm and stress, whether of the elements or of the less
candid foes who lurked unseen on the neighboring shores, made the
_Kansas_ a veritable fortress, a steel refuge seemingly impregnable.
But the knowledge of the vessel's helplessness, and of the equally
desperate hazard which beset her inmates, was rendered only more
poignant by the smiling aspect of land and sea.
Elsie was not a philosopher. She was just a healthy, clean-minded
Englishwoman, imbued with a love of art for art's sake, a girl whose
wholesome, courageous temperament probably unfitted her to achieve
distinction in the artistic career which she had mapped out for
herself.
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