He sat there like a man who has expected
to drink from an overflowing cup and suddenly finds it has nothing but
the empty air to offer to his thirsty lips.
'Guess!'
The little girl covered her mother's head with loud, quick kisses, in a
kind of frenzy, even hurting her a little.
'I know who it is--I know who it is,' cried Donna Maria--'Let me go!'
'What will you give me if I do?'
'Anything you like.'
'Well, I want a pony to carry back my berries to the house. Come and see
what a heap I have collected.'
She ran round the seat and pulled her mother by the hand. Donna Maria
rose rather wearily, and as she stood up she closed her eyes for a
moment as if overcome by sudden giddiness. Andrea rose too, and both
followed in Delfina's wake.
The mischievous child had stripped half the wood of fruit. The lower
branches had not a single berry left. With the aid of a stick, picked up
goodness knows where, she had reaped a prodigious harvest and then piled
up the fruit into one great heap, so intense in colouring against the
dark soil, that it looked like a heap of glowing embers. The flowers had
apparently not attracted her; there they hung, white and pink and yellow
and translucent, more delicate than the flowering locks of the acacia,
more graceful than the lily-of-the-valley, all bathed in dim golden
light.
'Oh Delfina! Delfina!' exclaimed Donna Maria, looking round upon the
devastation, 'what have you done!'
The child laughed and clapped her hands with glee in front of the
crimson pyramid.
Pages:
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191