Bellingham--in her delight at
the new, tender beauty of an early spring day in February. Among
the last year's brown ruins, heaped together by the wind in the
hedgerows, she found the fresh, green, crinkled leaves and pale
star-like flowers of the primroses. Here and there a golden
celandine made brilliant the sides of the little brook that (full
of water in "February fill-dyke") bubbled along by the side of
the path; the sun was low in the horizon, and once, when they
came to a higher part of the Leasowes, Ruth burst into an
exclamation of delight at the evening glory of mellow light which
was in the sky behind the purple distance, while the brown
leafless woods in the foreground derived an almost metallic
lustre from the golden mist and haze of sunset. It was but
three-quarters of a mile round by the meadows, but somehow it
took them an hour to walk it. Ruth turned to thank Mr. Bellingham
for his kindness in taking her home by this beautiful way, but
his look of admiration at her glowing, animated face, made her
suddenly silent; and, hardly wishing him good-bye, she quickly
entered the house with a beating, happy, agitated heart.
"How strange it is," she thought that evening, "that I should
feel as if this charming afternoon's walk were, somehow, not
exactly wrong, but yet as if it were not right. Why can it be? I
am not defrauding Mrs. Mason of any of her time; that I know
would be wrong; I am left to go where I like on Sundays.
Pages:
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72