But it was the flowers that held Elizabeth mute. Anderson had brought her to a wild garden of incredible beauty. Scarlet and blue, purple and pearl and opal, rose-pink and lavender-grey the flower-field ran about her, as though Persephone herself had just risen from the shadow of this nameless northern lake, and the new earth had broken into eager flame at her feet. Painter's brush, harebell, speedwell, golden-brown gaillardias, silvery hawkweed, columbines yellow and blue, heaths, and lush grasses--Elizabeth sank down among them in speechless joy. Anderson gathered handfuls of columbine and vetch, of harebell and heath, and filled her lap with them, till she gently stopped him.
"No! Let me only look!"
And with her hands around her knees she sat motionless and still. Anderson threw himself down beside her. Fragrance, colour, warmth; the stir of an endless self-sufficient life; the fruitfulness and bounty of the earth; these things wove their ancient spells about them. Every little rush of the breeze seemed an invitation and a caress.
Presently she thanked him for having brought her there, and said something of remembering it in England.
"As one who will never see it again?" He turned and faced her smiling. But behind his frank, pleasant look there was something from which she shrank.
"I shall hardly see it, again," she said hesitating. "Perhaps that makes it the more--the more touching. One clings to it the more--the impression--because it is so fugitive--will be so soon gone."
He was silent a moment, then said abruptly:
"And the upshot of all this is, that you could not imagine living in Canada?"
She started.
"I never said so. Of course I could imagine living in Canada!"