She returned with the basket packed, and her hat, which she put on before the mirror. Then we started on our picnic in the woods, I carrying the basket.
"What part of the woods are you going to?" inquired Madame Ancelot as we crossed the drawbridge.
"The grand pool," replied I, "if it is still there, and I can find it."
Then, a footstep, and the world of the woods surrounded us, its silence and its music.
The place was full of leaping lights and liquid shadows. Here, where the trees were not so dense, the sunlight came through the waving branches in dazzling, quivering shafts; twilit alleys led the eye to open spaces, golden glimmers, and the misty white of the hawthorn trees.
The place was a treasure-house of beauty, and we trampled the violets under foot.
"Run!" cried Eloise.
I chased her, lost her, found her again. I forgot my lameness, I forgot my guardian, the convenances, and the fact that I was come to man's estate and carrying a heavy basket. The trees echoed with our laughter, till, tired out, panting, flushed, with her hat flung back and held to her neck only by the ribbon, Eloise sat down on a little carpet of violets and folded her hands in her lap.
"Listen!" said she, casting her eyes up to the trembling leaves above.