"Mam'selle," Norval frowned his darkest, "have you ever heard of a bird who could sing and wouldn't?"
"No, Mr. Alton, never!" Jo was quite sincere. Her boarder was always giving her interesting information.
"It can be made to, Mam'selle. Again, I advise spanking."
Surely there was no fear that her boarder and Donelle might come to grief! Jo laughed light heartedly. Her own bleak experience in the realm of love and danger was so far removed that it gave her no guidance. She might have felt differently had she seen what happened the following day. But at that time she was diligently building her wood pile while Donelle, among the trees on the hilltop, was supposed to be instructing a couple of boys in sawing wood.
But Donelle had finished her instructions, the boys were working intelligently, and she had wandered away with her heart singing within her, she knew not why. Then she threw back her head and laughed. She knew the reason at last, Tom Gavot was coming back! Tom had been seeing roads in the deeper woods for nearly three weeks, but he was coming back. Marcel had said so. Of course that was why Donelle was happy.
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple keeping time;
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
Over and over Donelle said the words in a kind of chant which presently degenerated into words merely strung together.
"Like a rhyme—keeping time—like a cry—going by——" and then suddenly she heard her name.
"Donelle!" Standing under a flaming maple was Norval.
"I have been following you," he said, and his eyes, dark, compelling, were holding hers.