A long note
and a shower of silver-sweet echoes, so it ran, the invisible singer
seeming to sing for himself alone. So might elfin bells have pealed
from a thicket, inexpressibly low and tender.
Diane sat motionless, the free, wild grace of her seeming a part of the
primeval quiet. For somehow, by some twist of singer's magic, this
Florida bird was singing of Connecticut wind and river, of dogwood on a
ridge, of water lilies in the purple of a summer twilight, of a spot
named forever in her mind--Arcadia.
Now as the girl listened, a beautiful brown sprite of the rustling pine
wood about her, a great flood of color crept suddenly from the brown
full throat to the line of her hair, and the scarlet that lingered in
her cheeks was wilder than the red of winter holly.
Surely--surely there was no reason under Heaven why the little bird
should sing about a hay-camp!
But sing of it he did with a swelling throat and a melodic quiver of
nerve and sinew, and a curious dialogue followed.
"A hay-camp is a very foolish thing, to be sure!" sang the bird with a
dulcet shower of plaintive notes.
"To be sure," said the voice of the girl's conscience, "to be sure it
is. But how very like him!"
"But--but there was the bullet--"
"I have often thought of it," owned the Voice.
Pages:
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199