And nobody comes down to this end of the
warren, neither is it seen from the battery on the hill. Only from the
back is it likely to be invaded, and there is nothing to make people
look, or come, up here. So you have me altogether at your mercy, Miss
Darling."
Dolly thought within herself that it was much the other way, but could
not well express her thoughts to that effect. And being of a brisk and
versatile--not to say volatile--order, she went astray into a course of
wonder concerning the pretty little structure she beheld. Structure was
not the proper word for it at all; for it seemed to have grown from the
nature around, with a little aid of human hands to guide it. Branches of
sea-willow radiant with spring, and supple sprays of tamarisk recovering
from the winter, were lightly inwoven and arched together, with the
soft compliance of reed and rush from the marsh close by, and the stout
assistance of hazel rods from the westward cliff. The back was afforded
by a grassy hillock, with a tuft or two of brake-fern throwing up their
bronzy crockets among the sprayed russet of last year's pride. And
beneath them a ledge of firm turf afforded as fair a seat as even two
sweet lovers need desire.
"How clever he is, and how full of fine taste!" thought the
simple-minded Dolly; "and all this time I have been taking him for a
gloomy, hard-hearted, unnatural man. Blyth Scudamore never could have
made this lovely bower.
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