Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/246

234 own good reason for being beautiful. The oak-trees were beautiful because of their massive heaviness, and the birch-trees were beautiful because of their slender grace; the rocks were beautiful because they loomed so dark and black in the shade, and the stream was equally beautiful because it frothed so silvery white in the sunshine; the beauty of the foxglove was in its glowing deep-purple hue, and the hemlock was beautiful also because of its cold purity. Some plants were beautiful because they grew so straight and strong, and needed no support, and others were beautiful, too, because their exquisite weakness caused them to twine so gracefully; somethings were beautiful because of their rich hues, while the beauty of others lay in the very absence of color. Each thing was beautiful in its own individual fashion; and had it been otherwise, it would have been less perfect. Each tree and flower, each insect and blade of grass, had had its part assigned to it of being beautiful; every tint and touch had been laid on by a master-hand, to blend together into a picture harmonious in its finished loveliness.

By degrees the magic of the forest seized upon Magda and held her fast, and gradually the throbbing in her pulses and the hot pain in her heart began to subside. She cooled her fevered spirit in the shade of the waving trees, she laved it in the rushing stream, she fanned it in the aromatic breezes.

At last she had reached the inmost forest sanctuary, where the shade was the deepest, where the feathery fern grew highest, where the ivy twined most luxuriantly, and the wild thyme shed its most intoxicating perfume.

Mechanically she began collecting sticks; but her bundle grew slowly, for she worked lazily and dreamily, and Kuba had long since wandered from her side in search of some more congenial pursuit.

She had worked thus for about half an hour, and had collected just fifteen sticks, which promised ill for the suppers to be cooked that week, when of a sudden she stood still like a startled hind, and gazed wildly around her. There was a step approaching — a light, elastic step — and now and then the sharp crackling of a dried twig snapped asunder, — perhaps only some stag on its way to the stream; but now she heard a whistle clear and trilling, but whose note belonged to no bird in the forest.

Magda pressed both her hands against her heart; all her former fever had returned again with tenfold violence.

Looking out through the leafy screen, she could see Danelo coming along the forest-path, whistling a lively krakowiak, and looking into the bushes on either side with searching gaze, like a schoolboy intent on bird-nesting.

She watched him as long as she felt herself safe from his eye, but in a moment longer she would be discovered; then slowly, softly, like a bird hiding at the approach of the hawk, she let herself sink noiselessly among the waving ferns, which rippled and closed over her head in green waves.

Even then she did not feel quite safe, for was not her heart throbbing as loud as thunder? her ears were tingling, and her head was giddy with the sound. Surely it must betray her ?

However, Danelo passed by unsuspecting. Only when his whistle had died away in the distance, and she could no longer catch sight of his retreating figure through the trees, did Magda venture to creep out of her hiding-place, stiff and cramped from her cowering attitude. She did not resume her occupation of stick-gathering, but merely leaned against the massive stem of the giant beech-tree, gazing fixedly in the direction where Danelo had disappeared. How long she stood thus she never could remember, but the sun must have sunk low on the horizon, for it came slanting in through the trees, bronzing the stems and weaving a golden network on the mossy floor.

She felt quite benumbed, and her back ached with standing thus against the hard, shining tree-trunk, but she could not leave it. She remained thus standing as though spellbound to the spot, stupefied and unthinking; and when, after a long, a very long time, the steps and the whistling came back along the path, she made no attempt to move from her position.

With fixed but inexpressive gaze, she stared at Danelo as he now reappeared in sight. He raised his eyes, and on seeing the beautiful woman leaning against the beech-tree like an ideal Dryad, he uttered a joyful cry, and stood before her in the next moment.

His quick eye swept over the scanty heap of firewood, and the broken ranks in the clump of ferns which told their own tale.

"Magda! what are you doing here? Why do you hide from me?"