Coloring delicately, the metallic gray bosom of the lake presently
foretold the sunrise with a primrose glow. When at length the glaring
white light of the sun struck sparks from the dew upon the pine and
palmetto, Diane was riding rapidly south in quest of the Florida
flat-woods. There was a veritable paradise of birds in the pine
barren, Dick Sherrill had said, robins and bluebirds, flickers and
woodpeckers with blazing cockades, shrikes and chewinks.
It was an endless monotony of pine trees, vividly green and far apart,
into which Diane presently rode. A buzzard floated with uptilted wings
above the sparse woodland to the west. A gorgeous butterfly,
silver-spangled, winged its way over the saw palmetto and sedge between
the trees to an inviting glade beyond, cleft by a shallow stream.
Swamp, jungle, pine and palmetto were vocal with the melody of many
birds.
Diane reined in her horse with a thrill. This was Florida, at last,
not the unreal, exotic brilliance of Palm Beach. Here was her father's
beloved Flowerland which she had loved as a child. Here were pines and
tall grass, sun-silvered, bending in the warm wind, and the song of a
pine-wood sparrow!
From the scrub ahead came his quiet song, infinitely sweet, infinitely
plaintive like the faint, soft echo of a fairy's dream.
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