To be near trees, to touch their rough
barks, to fill one's hands with green leaves, to hear birds, to listen
to running water, to look up into the sky,--oh, this was to come
home!--and Angel's joy in these things was that of some wood-spirit who
you might expect any moment, like Undine, to slip out of your hands in
some laughing brook, or change to a shower of blossom over your head.
"Oh, how good the country is! I wish father were here. I could eat the
grass. And I just want to take the sky in my arms." As she swept across
meadow and through woodland, with the eagerness of a child, greedily
hastening from room to room of some inexhaustible palace, her little
tense body seemed like a transparent garment fluttering round the flying
feet of her soul.
At length she flung herself down, almost breathless, at the grassy foot
of a great tree.
"I suppose you think I'm mad," she said. "And really I think I must be;
for why should mere green grass and blue sky and a few birds make one
so happy?"
"Why should anything make us happy?"
"Or sad?"
"But now you're going to read my poem," she said, presently.
Pages:
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180