"Why not, Major Henry?"
Oh, the beautiful Basin! the beautiful Basin! I tried to speak, but could not.
"You never seemed before," said she, a sea-shell color glowing in her cheeks, "to feel above us!"
She felt humbled, and my poor brain was too dizzy and incredulous to frame fitting words. I swallowed hard; that was a Basin prerogative, and by exerting it a direct Basin inspiration seemed to come to me.
"Feel above you! O Vesty!"
At that the sea-shell color went away down low, even to her lips, but no further illumination came to me.
Past ghostly hill and moor and still-gleaming flood we flew. "I am happy," I could say at last, "as I ought not to be. In all scenes and places where I may ever be I shall remember this, Vesty."
She shivered a little. Ah! the sad old shawl! I clinched my hands.
Past hill and moor and still-gleaming flood: the light of day changed to one unfathomed, possible, as of sweet, unspoken dreams becoming blessed at nightfall.
Then all at once, round and full above a distant hill-top, rose the hoyden moon, and the Basins saluted her with shouts of natural delight, all save Vesty and I, who were silent.