"And the crest up there. Look at it. It is sculptured—domes, spires, castles. And those gothic arches. They are like joined hands; the granite prays. And see the glisten of that glacier in the haze, like a star in the veil of a bride! It's all beautiful!"
"They're terribly big mountains, aren't they?" said Dolly.
"See the plain away down there. It seems to heave slowly, like the flood after the rain had ceased."
"Do people live there?" asked Dolly.
"And the sky; did you ever see such sky! And the meadow here, how fresh and lush; and the pines, and the cabin, and the lake—isn't it all quiet and peaceful?"
She was silent, and after a while he turned to her. A tear was trembling at the end of one of her long lashes. "Goosie," she whispered, and she snuggled up against him; "Goosie, isn't it a bit—lonely here?"
"We won't find it lonely," he answered stoutly, and drew her close within his arms.
The day drawled on, slowly and deliciously. "Let's take a little walk," said Dolly, after a while.
"All right," said Charles-Norton, "I guess I still know how. I haven't walked much lately."
"I suppose not," said Dolly, hesitatingly. They were going side by side across the meadow, and Charles-Norton could feel her looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "I suppose—you have been—doing something else."