She was a wholesome, fresh-skinned girl, with a superb body, limbs a trifle heavy in the strict classical sense, straight-browed, blue-eyed, and very lovely and Greek.
Pensively she ate her toast, tossing a few crumbs at the robins; pensively she disposed of two eggs, a trout, and all the chocolate, and looked into the pitcher for more cream.
The swelling bird-music only intensified the deep, sweet country silence which brooded just beyond the lawn’s wet limits; she saw the flat river tumbling in the sunlight; she saw the sky over all, its blue mystery untroubled by a cloud.
“I love all that,” she said, dreamily, to her maid behind her. “Never mind my hair now; I want the wind to blow it.”
The happy little winds of June, loitering among the lilacs, heard; and they came and blew her bright hair across her eyes, puff after puff of perfumed balm, and stirred the delicate stuff that clung to her, and she felt their caress on her bare feet.
“I mean to go and wade in that river,” she said to her maid. “Dress me very quickly.”
But when she was dressed the desire for childish things had passed away, and she raised her grave eyes to the reflected eyes in the mirror, studying them in silence.
“After all,” she said, aloud, “I am young enough to have found happiness—if they had let me.… The sunshine is full of it, out-doors.… I could have found it.… I was not meant for men.… Still … it is all in the future yet. I will learn not to be afraid.”
She made a little effort to smile at herself in the mirror, but her courage could not carry her as far as that. So, with a quick, quaint gesture of adieu, she turned and walked rapidly out into the hallway.
Miss Garcide was in bed, sneezing patiently. “I won’t be out for weeks,” said the poor lady, “so you will have to amuse yourself alone.”