"That reminds me of something Cousin Tracey said once. He thought I was developing a New England conscience, and said it was an exceedingly troublesome thing to have around. I believe him,—it's much more fun to develop Kodak films. There now!" she broke off impatiently, "—if I haven't left my camera in the tent. And I want pictures of the Spring."
"Never mind, we'll be up here every day," said Alec. "There's a jolly little rustic bridge where you can gather the crowd for a group picture. Here we are!"
He and Blue Bonnet had walked faster than the others, and so were first to see this most beautiful of springs. Blue Bonnet gave one look, and then something rose in her throat, stifling breath and speech. Alec watched her appreciatively.
"If he speaks to me now, he's not the boy I've always believed him," the girl was saying to herself. She dreaded the first word that should break in on that moment of perfect beauty.
Below them the giant spring surged up, a great emerald in a setting of woods and hills. Clear as air, the water boiled up from the bowels of the earth, revealing every fish and pebble in its mirror-like depths. Shrubs overhung it; wild cresses and ferns clustered about it; below the surface long tresses of pinky-coral grasses floated and waved in the bubbling current.
A voice shattered the blissful moment of peace. "Isn't she a beauty?"
It was a sandy-haired youth with Kitty who had clambered roughly into the picture. Blue Bonnet hated him fiercely for a few seconds. Then the rest came up with a babble of voices and exclamations and she resigned herself, with a sigh, to the fact that the gift of silence, being golden, is given to but few.
Knight gave her a questioning glance and she glowed back at him. "It's perfect—almost too perfect."
"There's a wee spring up higher,—the camp creek flows from it. Do you feel equal to the climb?" he asked her.
She gave eager assent, and, after lingering a few minutes for the others and finding them too slow for the pace she liked, Blue Bonnet followed Knight up a steep winding path that circled the hill.
