From where they stood, the jutting rock below did look ample and tempting.
“But I’m sorry I frightened you,” she added, and looked up at him with an enchanting smile.
The new day had begun. The solemn pines towered above them. On a crag below clung an eagle’s nest, and the parent birds circled and soared above the emerald-green river, returning to the young with food.
“It seems,” said the man slowly, “as if we were alone in this stupendously beautiful world.”
“My head went round and round,” she returned dreamily. “I wonder how long I could have held there.”
He shuddered. “Did life suddenly seem well worth living?” he asked.
“Yes indeed,” she returned. “It seemed that, yesterday. A wonderful thing has happened to me. I’m not a heaver any more.”
“Tell me all about it. When did you come? What does it mean to find you here at dawn as if you had rained from the skies?”
“Mr. Derwent doesn’t want me to stay in the Park. He thinks there is other work I can do. He cared a great deal for my father, and for his sake he will take care of me and guide me, he says, if I will be obedient.” The speaker lifted her eyes again to those which studied her. “It’s easy to be obedient to pleasant orders, isn’t it? He wants to send me right back to Boston.”
She paused, and Irving nodded with satisfaction.