She had never been up there before. She
had no business there now, and, if she were found out when she got
back, she would get a scolding and maybe something worse from her
step-mother--and all that trouble and risk for nothing but smoke.
So, she lay back and rested--her little mouth tightening fiercely.
It was a big world, though, that was spread before her and a vague
awe of it seized her straightway and held her motionless and
dreaming. Beyond those white mists trailing up the hills, beyond
the blue smoke drifting in the valley, those limitless blue waves
must run under the sun on and on to the end of the world! Her dead
sister had gone into that far silence and had brought back
wonderful stories of that outer world: and she began to wonder
more than ever before whether she would ever go into it and see
for herself what was there. With the thought, she rose slowly to
her feet, moved slowly to the cliff that dropped sheer ten feet
aside from the trail, and stood there like a great scarlet flower
in still air. There was the way at her feet--that path that coiled
under the cliff and ran down loop by loop through majestic oak and
poplar and masses of rhododendron.
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