“That makes me feel young again,” I said.
“I wish it would make me feel old then,” said Wynnie.
“What do you mean, my child?”
“Because then I should have a chance of knowing what it is like to feel young,” she answered rather enigmatically. I did not reply. We were walking up the brow which hid the sea from us. The smell of the down-turf was indescribable in its homely delicacy; and by the time we had reached the top, almost every sense was filled with its own delight. The top of the hill was the edge of the great shore-cliff; and the sun was hanging on the face of the mightier sky-cliff opposite, and the sea stretched for visible miles and miles along the shore on either hand, its wide blue mantle fringed with lovely white wherever it met the land, and scalloped into all fantastic curves, according to the whim of the nether fires which had formed its bed; and the rush of the waves, as they bore the rising tide up on the shore, was the one music fit for the whole. Ear and eye, touch and smell, were alike invaded with blessedness. I ought to have kept this to give my reader in Connie’s room; but he shall share with her presently. The sense of space—of mighty room for life and growth—filled my soul, and I thanked God in my heart. The wind seemed to bear that growth into my soul, even as the wind of God first breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and the sun was the pledge of the fulfilment of every aspiration. I turned and looked at Wynnie. She stood pleased but listless amidst that which lifted me into the heaven of the Presence.
“Don’t you enjoy all this grandeur, Wynnie?”
“I told you I was very wicked, papa.”
“And I told you not to say so, Wynnie.”
“You see I cannot enjoy it, papa. I wonder why it is.”
“I suspect it is because you haven’t room, Wynnie.”
“I know you mean something more than I know, papa.”