"You sit down there and rest," he said, "and I'll go get you some more flowers."
"Don't you want to rest?" she inquired solicitously.
"No, I'm not tired," he answered gravely. He wouldn't laugh at her again in a hurry!
"Well, hurry back."
So she watched him pick his way across the little hollow to the twisted and gnarled crab trees. And as she watched there stole over her eager spirit the first whiff of that peace which was soon to settle so sweetly upon her heart—a restful recognition of the joy of calm; and all was blended with the bitter sweet scent of the crab blossoms and the ineffable savour of spring woods.
Andrew was soon back at her side with a sheaf of flag lilies and big branches of apple blooms; and Judith for the first time held real crab-apple blossoms in her hands, with their perfume, that mingling of Marah and myrrh, rising to her as incense from a censer. She had long known the distilled perfume; how different this living fragrance was. Something of this she told Andrew.
"Yes," he said, "I understand you exactly. You won't like the manufactured stuff any more. I never could eat canned salmon after eating the real article fresh from the stream where I'd caught it."
Miss Moore looked at him.
He laughed outright at her expression of disgust.
"Was it very awful to liken crab blooms to salmon? They're much of the same colour."