"Adorably," he whispered. "You are finding the little girl in the garden, Geraldine."
She looked up at him, serious, wistful.
"It's the boy who found her; I only helped. But I want to bring her home all alone."
[CHAPTER XXI
THE GOLDEN HOURS]
The weather was unsuitable for hunting. It snowed for a week, thawed over night, then froze, then snowed again, but the moon that night promised a perfect day.
Young Mallett supposed that he was afoot and afield before anybody else in house could be stirring, but as he pitched his sketching easel on the edges of the frozen pasture brook, and opened his field-box, a far hail from the white hill-top arrested him.
High poised on the snowy crest above him, clothed in white wool from collar to knee-kilts, and her thick clustering hair flying, she came flashing down the hill on her skis, soared high into the sunlight, landed, and shot downward, pole balanced.
Like a silvery meteor she came flashing toward him, then her hair-raising speed slackened, and swinging in a widely gracious curve she came gliding across the glittering field of snow and quietly stopped in front of him.
"Since when, angel, have you acquired this miraculous accomplishment?" he demanded.