Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/167

 She saw it in dreams more vivid than life, and as she fell away to slumber at nights her memory wandered in all its pleasant places. But her heart was opened to this girl: "Oh, Bessy, I loved the home we have left so dearly! I wish you could see it. I cannot tell you half its beauty. There are great trees standing all about it, with their branches stretching long and level, and making a deep shade of rest even at noonday. And yet, though every leaf may seem still, there is a continual rushing sound of movement all around—not close at hand. Then sometimes the turf is as soft and fine as velvet; and sometimes quite lush with the perpetual moisture of a little, hidden, tinkling brook near at hand. And then in other parts there are billowy ferns-whole stretches of fern; some in the green shadow; some with long streaks of golden sunlight lying on them—just like the sea."

"I have never seen the sea," murmured Bessy. "But go on."

"Then, here and there, there are wide commons, high up as if above the very tops of the trees—"

"I'm glad of that. I felt smothered like down below. When I have gone for an out, I've always wanted to get high up and see far away, and take a deep breath o' fulness in that air. I get smothered enough in Milton, and I think the sound yo' speak of among the trees, going on for ever and ever, would send me dazed; it's that made my head ache so in the mill. Now on these commons I reckon there is but little noise?"

"No," said Margaret; "nothing but here and there a lark high in the air. Sometimes I used to