Page:The One Woman (1903).pdf/119

 satin skin flush with pleasure and the creamy lace on her full bosom rise and fall.

They sat down on a rock beside a brook.

"What an inspiration to see this old yet ever new miracle of regeneration unfold under the magic touch of a woman's hand!"

"You mean a man's hand," she replied. "This would never have interested me except that you led me to see it."

"Then we've helped one another. I'm beginning to feel you are indispensable. I wonder if you, too, will leave us after awhile as so many pass on."

"No; this has become my very life," she soberly answered, looking down at the ground and then into his face with frank, open-eyed pleasure.

He was silent for several minutes and then softly laughed.

"What is it?" she cried.

"You could never guess."

She lifted her superb arms, showing bare to the elbow, and felt of the mass of auburn hair. "That load of red hay about to fall?"

"Don't be sacrilegious. No."

"Harness broken anywhere?" She felt of her belt, and ran her hands down the lines of her beautiful figure, eyeing him laughingly.

"I'll tell you," he said, sinking his voice to its lowest note of expressive feeling, while a whimsical smile played round the corners of his eyes. "Sitting here in the woods by your side on this glorious