The little building, which at the most held not more than twenty-five pupils and their teacher, held no pupils today within its thick graystone walls. There was the motionless and empty silence of the Sabbath about it. Its windows were shuttered, its short sturdy door, which faced the east, locked and barred. It was a square building, rather low and squat, yet full of strength. The thickness and roughness of its walls gave it a pudgy effect, somewhat grim and unmovable, and its slightly peaked roof seemed pulled down resolutely upon its head. The long white road stretched away smilingly, rising and falling gently, towards the near mountains. The mountains, so clear and translucent, seemed carved with an axe of light from the intensely blue skies. Those to the west were almost incandescent, so that their chaotic outlines were barely perceptible against the brilliant heavens. Those to the northeast, however, were of such purity, such delicate blueness, that they appeared formed of hollow glass and ice, through which light poured.
