Reward came to him,
however. The woman eyed him with more and more kindliness, and at length
she spoke.
It was one day towards the end of the month, when the last film of snow
had evaporated from many a field and slope, and the vivid green of grass
appeared for the first time to gladden the eyes, although many an
ice-wreath and snowy hollow still lay between. On such a day the sight
of a folded head of saxifrage from which the pearls are just breaking
makes the heart of man bound with a pleasure that has certainly no
rational cause which is adequate.
Caius came up from the western shore, where he had been watching a
distant ship that passed on the other side of the nearer ice-floes, and
which said, by no other signal than that of her white sails, that winter
was gone. The sea, whose rivers and lakes among the ice had of late
looked so turbid by reason of frozen particles in the water, was clear
now to reflect once more the blue above it, and the ice-cakes were very
white in the sunshine. Caius turned his back upon this, and came up a
stony path where large patches of the hill were green; and by chance he
came upon O'Shea's wife, who was laying out linen to bleach at some
distance from her own house. Close to her Caius saw the ledge of rock on
which the first flowers of the year were budding, and straightway fell
in love with them.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225