Like all
perfectly healthy people, much exercise was as welcome to her as food
and sleep; ten miles were refreshing; fifteen miles in an afternoon an
exaltation. She reached the moor beyond the policies, and, once past
this rushy wilderness, came to the Avelin-side and a single plank bridge
which she crossed lightly without a tremor. Then came the highway, and
then a long planting of firs, and last of all the dip of a rushing
stream pouring down from the hills in a lonely wooded hollow. The girl
loved to explore, and here was a field ripe for adventure.
Soon she grew flushed with the toil and the excitement; climbing the bed
of the stream was no child's play, for ugly corners had to be passed,
slippery rocks to be skirted, and many breakneck leaps to be effected.
Her spirits rose as the spray from little falls brushed her face and the
thick screen of the birches caught in her hair. When she reached a
vantage-rock and looked down on the chain of pools and rapids by which
she had come, a cry of delight broke from her lips. This was living,
this was the zest of life! The upland wind cooled her brow; she washed
her hands in a rocky pool and arranged her tangled tresses. What did
she care for Mr. Stocks or any man? He was far down on the lowlands
talking his pompous nonsense; she was on the hills with the sky above
her and the breeze of heaven around her, free, sovereign, the queen of
an airy land.
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