The river plainly beckoned her: so, thrusting her way through the hedge, Carrie set off across the meadows towards the silvery loops of water that slipped along so invitingly in the distance. The fields were white with anemone blossoms. She stood among them in perfect rapture, and then got down upon her knees and began to pull the flowers in handfuls; then further off, along the river bank, she saw a great thicket of blossoming thorn, white as snow, and off she ran towards it.
Carrie flung down all her freshly gathered flowers in a heap upon the grass when she reached the thorn bushes. For these blossoms were lovelier by far than anything she had seen yet; the little starry flowers set on to their jagged black stems had a beauty all their own. Undismayed by the assailing thorns, Carrie pressed into the thicket to gather some of the coveted branches. Her hair caught on the bushes, her dress gave a distracting tear, and finally she scratched her plump white arm up to the elbow. This at last sobered her adventurous spirit. She tried to escape from the clinging branches, but being town-bred, she was ignorant of the fact that to turn round in a thorn thicket is to imprison yourself hopelessly there. So Carrie twisted quickly round, thinking to find herself free, and instead felt of a sudden twenty more thorns catch on her unfortunate person. She shook her head, and a branch a-dance in the breeze clutched her hair like a human hand.
‘O you beautiful cross bushes!’ cried Carrie in despair, ‘I will not gather more of you, if you will but let me go!’
‘Can I help you, madam?’ said a voice behind her at this moment, and some one laughed. Carrie could not turn round to see who had come to her assistance, but she laughed also.
‘O yes, I thank you,’ she cried; ‘I do not know what to do, I am all caught round and round.’
‘Come out backwards; do not try to turn, I shall hold the branches here for you. Take heed for your eyes, madam,’ said her helper. Carrie began to beat a slow retreat, disengaging herself from the clinging branches one by one. At last, torn and dishevelled, she shook off the last assailant and turned round to see who had come to her aid.
A young man with very shining eyes stood beside her, still holding back the thorn bushes with one hand. They looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then the young man exclaimed in a tone of surprised amusement,
‘Now, by all the powers! ’Tis little Carrie Shepley!’ And Carrie, in spite of her ruffled plumage, responded to this salutation with great urban ease of manner.
‘And this is “Phil” that used to be?’ she said, holding out her hand to him.
‘Carrie, you are scarce changed at all, saving that you are grown to be near as tall as I am,’ said Phil, and he eyed Carrie with great admiration as he took her hand.