The eastern heaven was one sheet of burnished gold that slowly grew to red, and higher yet to orange and the faintest rose.

To the left departing sunbeams rested lovingly on grey Quathlamba's crests, even firing the eternal snows that lay upon his highest peak, and writing once more upon their whiteness the record of another day fulfilled.

Lower down the sky floated little clouds, flame-flakes fallen from the burning mass above, and on the earth beneath lay great depths of shadow barred with the brightness of the dying light.
John stood and gazed at it, and its living, glowing beauty seemed to fire his imagination, as it fired earth and heaven, in such sort that the torch of love lit upon his heart like the sunbeams on the mountain tops.

Then from the celestial beauty of the skies he turned to look at the earthly beauty of the woman who sat there before him, and found that also fair.

Whether it was the contemplation of the glories of Nature--for there is always a suspicion of melancholy in beautiful things--or whatever it was, her face had a touch of sadness on it that he had never seen before, and which certainly added to its charm as a shadow adds to the charm of the light.
"What are you thinking of, Bessie ?" he asked.
She looked up, and he saw that her lips were quivering a little.