Here,—the chimneys of the house just visible below, here, aloof in a beautiful world,—she stood on the brow of her hill among gnarled fine old apple trees. She went up to one, she laid her cheek against it.
“Yes, I can understand what a sight you were in the Garden of Eden,” she whispered. “In Spring, when your rosy blossoms are out,—in Autumn when you are hung with ripe red and golden fruit! And, yes—Henry Pontycroft's prophecy is fulfilled.... Here is Eve, sulking in her native apple orchard!”
“Derrièr' chez mon père,
Vole, vole mon cour, vole—
Derrièr' chez mon père
Y a un pommier doux—
Tout doux et you!”
“If Adam, or if Pontycroft were here...” she sighed, “I should be vastly tempted—-tout doux et you-,—to tempt either of them. Oh, see how the rosy horizon is caught in its net woven of grey leafless branches! The sky is a sumptuous Prussian blue and how it fades at the zenith to palest azure! All the Royal colour is broken up by bold white clouds, and—this—ah, this is far too fair a sight for one pair of eyes to revel in alone. This cries, aloud, for Adam!”
Ruth looked about her. At her feet, oddly enough, curiously enough, a red firm apple, forgotten there,—untouched by frosts,—at her feet lay a fine red pippin. She picked it up, she smiled, she wondered....
“But—but—there's only you—old Puss! Here, catch it,” she cried to Miranda, who came running towards her, scenting the game he loved. With a gentle toss Ruth threw the apple along the turf and left Miranda to the ecstatic enjoyment of patting it, pushing it and rolling over it for quite eleven minutes.