Page:Maria Felicia.pdf/61

 sky—all the charms of a spring morning had not the power to arouse her. Quietly, with downcast eyes, she sat in the saddle, and her face, which had beamed with happy blushes in the ball-room, was now veiled with thoughtful pallor.

Probably the Countess, lost in her reverie, would have gone on and returned to Prague without favoring her attendants with one word or look, had not her horse, frightened by a dog whose master was herding sheep in the distance, suddenly reared up. Aroused from her dreams, she looked up, and while the cavaliers anxiously surrounded her to see if she was hurt, she looked about as though she had yet to recollect where she was, how she came to be there, and who was talking to her. Her eyes wandered to the horizon, girded by a mountain belt, and with that scene her life and usual sprightliness suddenly returned. Her eyes beamed, the blood tingled in her veins, a strong desire pulsated within her to fly over those green meadows, budding forests, clear rivers glittering in the trans-