It was ten o'clock that morning of mid-May. The rain was over. Clouds and
mists were gone, leaving an atmosphere of purest crystal. The sun floated a
globe of gold in the yielding blue. Above the wilderness on a dead treetop,
the perch of an eagle now flashing like a yellow weather-vane, a thrush
poured the spray-like far-falling fountain of his notes over upon the bowed
woods.
Beneath him the dull green domes of the trees flashed as though
inlaid with gems, white and rose. Under these domes the wild grapevines,
climbing the forest arches as the oak of stone climbs the arches of a
cathedral, filled the ceiling and all the shadowy spaces between with fresh
outbursts of their voluptuous dew-born fragrance. And around the
rough-haired Satyr feet of these vines the wild hyacinth, too full of its
own honey to stand, fell back on its couch of moss waiting to be visited by
the singing bee.
The whole woods emerged from the cloudy bath of Nature with the coolness,
the freshness, the immortal purity of Diana united to the roseate glow and
mortal tenderness of Venus; and haunted by two spirits: the chaste, unfading
youth of Endymion and the dust-born warmth and eagerness of Dionysus.
Through these woods, feeling neither their heat nor their cold, secured by
Nature against any passion for either the cooling star or the inflaming
dust, rode Amy--slowly homeward from the ball. Yet lovelier, happier than
anything the forest held. She had pushed her bonnet entirely off so that it
hung by the strings at the back of her neck; and her face emerged from the
round sheath of it like a pink and white tulip, newly risen and bursting
forth.
When she reached home, she turned the old horse loose with many pattings and
good-byes and promises of maple sugar later in the day; and then she bounded
away to the garden to her aunt, of whom, perhaps, she was more truly fond
than of any one in the world except herself.
Mrs. Falconer had quickly left off work and was advancing very slowly--with
mingled haste and reluctance--to meet her.
"Aunt Jessica! Aunt Jessica!" cried Amy in a voice that rang like a small
silver bell, "I haven't seen you for two whole nights and three whole days!"
Placing her hands on Mrs. Falconer's shoulders, she kissed her once on each
cheek and twice playfully on the pearly tip of the chin; and then she looked
into her eyes as innocently as a perfect tulip might look at a perfect rose.
Mrs. Falconer smilingly leaned forward and touched her lips to Amy's
forehead. The caress was as light as thistle-down--perhaps no warmer.