At last she lifted a half-twined garland high over her head, that the sunshine might kindle up its blossoms, and as her eyes were turned upward they fell upon me. The garland hung motionless in her hand; the song died on her lips, leaving them like an opening rose-bud; and her blue eyes filled with a look of pleasant wonder. Thus, for the moment, we gazed upon each other, we who were to be a destiny each to the other.
“Come,” she said at last, pushing her straw hat toward me so eagerly that a quantity of flowers rolled over the brim, through which the broad strings rippled in azure waves—“come, there is enough for us both, let us pelt the brook and hear the water laugh as it runs away with them. Here, jump to the rock, I will make room. Now for it!”
She gathered up her skirt, crushing the blossoms with her little dimpled arms, pushed back the bonnet, and left a space upon the stone for me to occupy.
I sprang down the bank breathing quickly, and with my whole frame in a joyful glow, I placed myself among the blossoms, wove my arms about the charming infant’s, and kissed her shoulders till she laughed aloud, as a bird breaks into music at the first sight of a kindred songster.
“Come,” said the child, her voice still rich with glee—“come, let us go to work; which will you have, violets, primroses, or some of these pretty white stars that I found by the brook?”
“All, all,” I answered, with animation, “give them to me, and mind what a pretty crown I shall make for your hair.”
She turned her great wondering eyes on me as I wove the blossoms together—the violets with golden primroses, intermingling them with leaves and spears of long grass, a white star gleaming out here and there in silvery relief.
When she saw my garland, so different from her own, in which the flowers were grouped without method, the child seemed lost in admiration. After gazing on it a moment, and then upon me, she took her own half-formed wreath and cast it upon the brooklet with a charming little pout of the lips, that was lovely almost as her smiles had been.
I went on with my coronal, enjoying the task as an author does his poem, or a painter his picture. The buds harmonized under my fingers; their symmetrical grace filled my soul with the delight which springs from a natural love of the beautiful. Even at that age I had all the feelings of an artist, all that love of praise which holds a place in those feelings.
“Ah,” said I, weaving my wreath among her golden curls, “if you could see how beautiful you are together, you and the flowers.”