“Look! Look! Mount Mansfield off there—mighty Mount Mansfield! We’re on higher ground now—and you can just get—a peep—at it,” panted Pemrose by and by, her bare hand stroking Revelation’s neck, as they slackened pace again.
The trail was climbing, the curving mountain bridle path, broad enough, in most places, for two to ride abreast—and far away in the distance there were the cloudy outlines of the giants of the Green Mountains, Mount Mansfield—Camel’s Hump.
“And the hills to the right of us n-now!” It was an ecstatic little cry from Una, her lip-corners curving up towards the dark, curly eyelashes. “See! Two of them, just—just like big green bubbles—twin bubbles, as if they had been blown there, tossed there!”
“But the boulders!” said Pemrose, a minute or two later. “Just as if some old giant had been playing pitch-and-toss with them on the hillside! Goodness! the farmers must have a hard time.”
“That’s why I’m giving my birthday party—for them,” whispered Una, bending forward towards Revel’s silken ear. “Ha! We’re leaving the rest of the party ‘in the dust,’—far behind,” she laughed, resting her hand on the pommel, to look around. “Dorothy is riding more easily to-day, on old King—you can’t see daylight between her and the saddle,” with a quivering grin.
“And Lura can keep her balance without holding on like grim death when her horse wheels quickly round a turn,” said Pemrose, glancing back, too. “Isn’t her ‘copper nob’ wonderful when she’s riding, bare-headed—a lamp to the way?”
“There! Oh! there’s another lamp to the way. Cardinal flowers! Cardinal flowers—down by the brook, there!” Una’s quick eye caught the blaze of vermilion through the scrub. “Oh! I must get off and pick some.”
“Keep them for the Wild Flower Party—your farmers’ party—pageant—the day after to-morrow; we can ride over, again, and get some,” Pemrose argued. “It’s to-morrow that we plan to have a picnic—a supper up on the old Balcony, on our mountain, where you stand on the lip of nothing.... Mercy! What! Oh—tumbleweed! Dry tumbleweed!”
It was a big, brown pompon of the feathery weed, broken by the wind from its stem and bowling gayly down the trail.
It was Revelation shying nervously, side-stepping down the slope, his neck curved restively—his eyes trained sidelong upon that trail tumbler, as if it were a King of Terrors.