He need have had no fears for her as a walker, for she was of the elect few born to grace of motion. Slight she was, yet strong; the delicacy that breathed from her was of the spirit, and consisted with perfect health. No Grecian nymph could have trod with lighter or surer step nor have unconsciously offered to the eye more supple and beautiful lines of limb and body.
Never had the young man seen before anybody whose charm went so poignantly to the root of his emotions. Every turn of the head, the set of the chin, the droop of the long, thick lashes on the soft cheek, the fling of a gesture, the cadence of her voice; they all delighted and fascinated him. She was a living embodiment of joy-in-life, of love personified.
She packed her sketches and her paraphernalia with businesslike directness, careless of whether he did or did not see her water-colors. A movement of his hand stayed her as she took from, the easel the one upon which she had been engaged.
It represented the sun-drenched slope below them, with the little gulch dressed riotously in its gala best of yellows.
"You've got that fine," he told her enthusiastically.
She shook her head, unmoved by praise which did not approve itself to her judgment as merited.
"No, I didn't get it at all. A great artist might get the wonder of it; but I can't."
"It looks good to me," he said.
"Then I'm afraid you're not a judge," she smiled.
From where they stood a trail wound along the ridge and down into a valley beyond. At the farther edge of this, nestling close to the hills that took root there, lay the houses of a ranch.