Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/148

Rh by its own impetus, till it vanished in the dark rim of wood on the opposite height. The lads waiting on the knoll sang out for joy, and Bessy clapped her hands and joined with them.

“What fun! I wish I’d brought Cicely! I’ve not coasted for years,” she laughed out, as the second detachment of boys heaped themselves on another sled and shot down. Amherst looked at her with a smile. He saw that every other feeling had vanished in the exhilaration of watching the ﬂight of the sleds. She had forgotten why she had come—forgotten her distress at his dismissal—forgotten everything but the spell of the long white slope, and the tingle of cold in her veins.

“Shall we go down? Should you like it?” he asked, feeling no resentment under the heightened glow of his pulses.

“Oh, do take me—I shall love it!” Her eyes shone like a child’s—she might have been a lovelier embodiment of the shouting boyhood about them.

The ﬁrst band of coasters, sled at heels, had by this time already covered a third of the homeward stretch; but Amherst was too impatient to wait. Plunging down to the meadow he caught up the sled-rope, and raced back with the pack of rejoicing youth in his wake. The sharp climb up the hill seemed to ﬁll his lungs with ﬂame: his whole body burned with a strange [ 132 ]