Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/153

 radiant holiday afternoon, Don walked with her along the road that dipped into his valley on the outskirts of the town, as happy as if he were bringing her to a new Eden.

They had escaped from the cramped seats of a crowded trolley-car, and they came to freedom down the middle of the water-rutted steep road between guardian poplar-trees, at a pace that set the loose stones rolling under their feet. It brought back to her cheeks a colour that the winter had blanched from them, and to her eyes a sparkle of mischief that had been lacking to the more timid, grave regard with which she had met him since their quarrel. She ran to a boulder that had been bared by the rains at the roadside, and sprang up on it; and leaning against the wind, she drank in the air and the distance with deep breaths and a long gazing, poised on her little feet with her arms as if floating out beside her, her skirts blown, her ribbons fluttering in her hat; and he watched her, holding his breath on a smile, as if she were a bird which he was afraid was about to fly away. "Isn't it lovely!" she thrilled. "The trees—so green! Look at the shadows of the clouds on the hill there! Oh!" She clasped her hands. "Where are we going?"

He laughed, guarding the small secret. "Down there—around the turn in the valley—where we can look over the river."

"Is it as pretty as this?"

"Prettier. It's never been farmed, the sides are too steep."