CHAPTER XX.
Fenton had been crying out that the kettle was boiling; and yet, when Meredith stopped reading nobody was in a hurry to move. The little group lying there upon the pine branches was as quiet as the day; and there is no describing the beauty of that rest in which nature for the moment seemed to be still. The delicate clear blue overhead; the still racks of white cloud here and there upon it, doing nothing and going nowhere, only lying fair on the blue; the breathless atmosphere in which an aspen leaf would have hung motionless; the broad river below moving its strong current so silently and so unobtrusively; there was no token of motion, unless in a vessel which was slowly drifting down while her sails hung windless by the mast; the profound quiet had something imposing. I cannot tell how, some grave, sweet influence seemed to press upon every heart in the company; and for a few minutes after the reader's voice ceased, the stillness was significant.
"We seem to be out of the world!" Flora remarked at last in an undertone.
"Why?" Mr. Murray asked.
"I don't know. Confusions and disturbance are nowhere in sight. It is all peace."
"And purity," added Meredith.
"How nice if one could live so!" Flora went on.
"You may, to a great degree, live so," said Mr. Murray. "It will not be always October, and your couch may not always be such a feathery one; and yet, Miss Flora—I fancy that Pastor Breyhan lived in very much such an atmosphere all his life."
"The story is just in harmony with the day and the place; isn't it?" said Meredith.