But she was unused to such stooping and steady work, and as she cooled down she grew very tired. She was in a rough grown place and she mounted on a rock and stood up to rest herself and look.
Pretty — pretty, it was. It was almost time to go home, for the sun was out of their strawberry patch and the woody walls were a few shades deeper coloured than they had been; while over the river, on the other side, the steep rocks of the home point sent back a warm glow yet. The hills beyond them stood in the sun, and in close contrast was the little deep green patch of fore-ground, lit up with the white or the gay dresses of the strawberry pickers. The sweet river, a bit of it, in the middle of the picture, half in sunshine, half in shade. It was like a little nest of fairy-land; so laughed the sunshine, so dwelt the shade, in this spot and in that one. Elizabeth stood fast. It was bewitching to the eyes. And while she looked, the shadow of Wut-a-qut-o was creeping over the river, and now ready to take off the warm browns of the rocky point.
She was thinking it was bewitching, and drinking it in, when she felt two hands clasp her by the waist, and suddenly, swiftly, without a word of warning, she was swung off, clear to another rock about two yards distant, and there set down, "all standing." In bewildered astonishment, that only waited to become indignation, she turned to see whom she was to be angry with. Nobody was near her but Winthrop, and he had disappeared behind the rock on which she had just been standing. Elizabeth was not precisely in a mood for cool judgment; she stood like an offended brood-hen, with ruffled feathers, waiting to fly at the first likely offender. The rest of the party began to draw near.
"Come Lizzie, we're going home," said her cousin.
"I am not," said Elizabeth.
"Why?"
"Because I am not ready."
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing — only I am not ready."
"The sun's out of Bright Spot now, Miss Haye," said Rufus, with a somewhat mischievous play of feature.