Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 2).djvu/150

 swarms of wild bees were humming in ecstasy; but in the water-places the reeds and canes were growing ragged and broken, the nuphar and the nymphæa leaves were getting yellow and torn, and here and there a leaf fluttered from the silver poplar-trees.

To walk against the wind, to feel the wet grass under her feet, to smell the fresh scent of the sods as a troop of young horses galloped past her, scattering the earth with their unshod hoofs in merry scampers, unconscious of the cruel fate—of the whip, and the curb, and the shafts, and the brutal mastery—that waited for them in the future; all these sights and sounds of nature were such delights that the pressure of anxiety which weighed upon her for the sake of the man she protected was lifted off her as she went; and her young body, and the heart that beat in it, both felt light as thistledown.

She saluted all her friends and familiars. She saw the first flight of herons of the year sailing towards the Ciminian range; she saw a goose alight, jaded after long journeying, and settle, as if with a sigh of content, in a fringe of the red reeds; she espied some grasshopper warblers in the