Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/170

 music; a hum of conversation filled the air; pretty girls in white or blue or rose color were moving about; the wind drew with delicious coolness through the galleries; altogether it would have been hard to find on a summer morning a prettier place or a livelier scene.

Mrs. Gray was too much of a favorite not to be at once sought out. She was soon the centre of a little group of friends; and Candace sat beside her, silent as usual, but gazing with enchanted eyes at the animated figures on the tennis ground, at the gables and loggias of the restaurant building, at the curious clock-tower, with the heavy iron rings depending above the base, and its top like a bellflower. It was all like a fairy tale to her. Her imagination was actively at work, but no one would have guessed it from her quiet little face; and when Mrs. Gray introduced her to one person and another, she shrank into herself, and after her shy little bow and "How do you do?" relapsed again into stillness, and made no attempt to keep up a conversation. People were kind; but it is always