But while his eyes feasted
on these things, his mind was chiefly occupied in recalling the one
attitude, the one look--oh, that pallor, that sudden pallor just now
when he had proffered those few low words! And the indefinable tone of
her voice when she called Delfina.
'Is it far now?' asked Donna Maria.
'No, no, mamma, we are just there--here it is!'
As they neared the spot a sort of shyness came over Andrea. Since those
words of his he had not met Maria's eye. What did she think? What were
her feelings? What would her eyes say when, at last, she looked at him?
'Here it is!' cried the little girl.
The laurels had grown thinner, affording a freer view of the sea, and
the next moment the mass of arbutus flushed rosy-red before them like a
forest of coral with large tassels of blossom at the end of their
branches.
'What a glory!' murmured Maria.
The marvellous wilderness bloomed and bore fruit in a deep and sunny
space curved like an amphitheatre, in which all the delicious sweetness
of that aromatic shore seemed gathered up and concentrated. The stems,
tall and slender, crimson for the most part, but here and there yellow,
bore great shining green leaves, all motionless in the calm air.
Innumerable tassels of blossom, like sprays of lily-of-the-valley, white
and dewy, hung from the young boughs, while the maturer ones were loaded
with red or orange-yellow fruit.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186