Above, making for the trees of the foothills far away, a golden eagle floated, a prairie-hen sped affrighted from some invisible thing; and in the far distance a railway train slipped down the plain like a serpent making for a covert in the first hills of the first world that ever was.
At a casual glance the vast plain seemed uninhabited, yet here and there were men and horses, tiny in the vastness, but conquering.

Here and there also--for it was July--a haymaker sharpened his scythe, and the sound came singing through the air radiant and stirring with life.
Seated in the shade of a clump of trees a girl sat with her chin in her hands looking out over the prairie, an intense dreaming in her eyes.

Her horse was tethered near by, but it scarcely made a sound.

It was a horse which had once won a great race, with an Irish gentleman on his back.
Long time the girl sat absorbed, her golden colour, her brown-gold hair in harmony with the universal stencil of gold.

With her eyes drowned in the distance, she presently murmured something to herself, and as she did so the eyes deepened to a nameless umber tone, deeper than gold, warmer than brown; such a colour as only can be found in a jewel or in a leaf the frost has touched.
The frost had touched the soul which gave the colour to the eyes of the girl.