Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/108

 from Persian rose fields and from Syrian cedar groves, and was content—so content!—to sit all the day long, all the spring through, in one little nest on one low bough, amidst 'the ploughman's spikenard and the blue borage and the prickly safety of the field ononis.

As the birds rested in their nests, so did she, and lost her wish to roam hither and thither over the far meadows stretching to the south and the dense woodlands leading to the Ciminian hills.

If he could have gone with her, indeed, then, with her hand in his, gladly would her steps have passed through the woodspurge and the trefoil and the plumy grasses whilst the blessing of the spring was upon all the land. But since he could not, dearer to her than the sunlight was the twilight of the tombs. She, to whom air was at once the nectar and the necessity of life, gave up the green and golden days without a sigh, except a sigh that he was unable to behold the radiance and smell the fragrance of them.

She was abroad for the inevitable work needful for their maintenance, but no more did she linger amidst the parnassus-grass by the pools to watch the water birds, no more