Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/284

 nor had any casual marauder entered to despoil. Medora directed the disposition of the hamper of food with a relieved air and sent Cope down with Peter for an armful or two of driftwood from the assertive shore.

"And you, Carolyn," she said, "see if the oil-stove will really go."

Down on the beach itself, where the past winter's waste was still profusely spread, Cope rose to the greening hills, to the fresh sweep of the wind, and to the sun-shot green and purple streakings over the water. The wind, in particular, took its own way: dry light sand, blown from higher shelvings, striped the dark wet edges of the shore; and every bending blade of sand-grass drew a circle about itself with its own revolving tip.

Cope let the robust and willing Peter pick up most of the firewood and himself luxuriated in the spacious world round about him. Yes, a winter had flown—or, at any rate, had passed—and here he was again. There had been annoyances, but now he felt a wide and liberal relief. Here, for example, was the special stretch of shore on which Amy Leffingwell had praised his singing and had hinted her desire to accompany him,—but never mind that. Farther on was the particular tract where Hortense Dunton had pottered with her water-colors and had harried him with the heroines of eighteenth century fiction,—but never mind that, either. All those things were past, and he was free. Nobody remained save Carolyn Thorpe, an unaggressive girl with whom one could really trust