She who had been used to scamper about like a wild thing on
a pony, found the delight of a breath of wind almost more than she could
bear. After she was laid down she closed her eyes, and the smile that
flickered about her mouth was of a sort that harmonised entirely with the
two great tears that crept softly out from under her eyelids, and sank,
rather than ran, down her cheeks. She lay so that she faced a rich tract
of gently receding upland, plentifully wooded to the horizon's edge, and
through the wood peeped the white and red houses of a little hamlet, with
the square tower of its church just rising above the trees. A kind of frame
was made to the whole picture by the nearer trees of our own woods, through
an opening in which, evidently made or left for its sake, the distant
prospect was visible. It was a morning in early summer, when the leaves
were not quite full-grown but almost, and their green was shining and pure
as the blue of the sky, when the air had no touch of bitterness or of
lassitude, but was thoroughly warm, and yet filled the lungs with the
reviving as of a draught of cold water. We had fastened the carriage
umbrella to the sofa, so that it should shade her perfectly without
obscuring her prospect; and behind this we all crept, leaving her to come
to herself without being looked at, for emotion is a shy and sacred thing
and should be tenderly hidden by those who are near.
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