The girl's arms were lifted toward him; she whirled, thrust
Peter back, and fled over soft and treacherous hassocks of the purple
weed. In another instant she flashed into the dying light on the sea
beyond the headland, poised.
The weed lifted and fell, seething, but the cry, even if the old man had
heard it once, was not repeated.
GREEN GARDENS[13]
By FRANCES NOYES HART
(From _Scribner's Magazine_)
Daphne was singing to herself when she came through the painted gate in
the back wall. She was singing partly because it was June, and Devon,
and she was seventeen, and partly because she had caught a breath-taking
glimpse of herself in the long mirror as she had flashed through the
hall at home, and it seemed almost too good to be true that the radiant
small person in the green muslin frock with the wreath of golden hair
bound about her head, and the sea-blue eyes laughing back at her, was
really Miss Daphne Chiltern. Incredible, incredible luck to look like
that, half Dryad, half Kate Greenaway--she danced down the turf path to
the herb-garden, swinging her great wicker basket and singing like a
small mad thing.
"He promised to buy me a bonnie blue ribbon,"
carolled Daphne, all her own ribbons flying,
"He promised to buy me a bonnie blue ribbon,
He promised to buy me a bonnie blue ribbon
To tie up--"
The song stopped as abruptly as though some one had struck it from her
lips.
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