The road was shadeless, but they tramped along it gaily, and little columns of silvery dust whirled in front of them. He knew everything, and nothing escaped his keenly observant eye. He pointed out a wild rabbit flicking the white underpart of its tail impertinently as it scampered away with comical self-importance. Every moment there was something fresh to look at.
Since her married days at Lischnitz Castle, Lilly had never seen the spring blossom forth in the pure open country.
"Ah! if then I had had him for my guide," she thought, "all would have been different."
As they entered the warm shade of the pine-woods, a squirrel ran almost over their feet and darted a few feet up a tree, where it paused and sat motionless, as if turned to stone.
They looked at each other, both thinking of the moment that had first brought them together.
Lilly went close up to the little animal, but he did not stir.
"I feel as if I were on enchanted ground," she said; "if he began to talk to us I shouldn't be surprised."
She threw herself down, with a sigh of content, on the grey cushiony moss.
He followed her example. Shading their eyes with their hands, they lay on their backs and blinked at the sunshine flickering down on them through the branches. They had nearly forgotten the squirrel, when suddenly, close above them, he made a whistling sound, and then scuttled for his life further up the tree to the topmost branches.
The scared little fellow had been staring at them all the time, not daring to move until now.