Chapter 78

At last came the blessed dawn, and the mist lay like a vasty shining cloud on the place, but as the sun swam up, full of power and warmship, not to be gainsayed, the mist came loose all in a piece, and lifted slow, till there was a space betwixt its under side and the mere, where the coots swam, like bees running about between two boards. Then one-half of the tree-trunks came free, so that the forest seemed to be mounded up with snow. It lifted and lifted, and at last went into the sky, and failed amid the clouds o…