To think, then, that she trembled beside a steam-engine made
her a problem.
She wore a quaintly round dress of lightish-brown mohair, which would
not fall into graceful folds. So there she sat in the little library,
knitting Titanically; and I sat alone with her, learning to round
Hatteras at the heel in a swirl of contradictory impressions. I felt
that she ought to have been dressed in soft dark silks, with a large,
half-idle fan before her lips.
She quickly saw that I was a miniature mystery/ myself, and presently
got me out into the woods. Here I came into contact with her for the
first time.
She stepped along under the trees with great deliberation, holding up
the inflexible mohair skirt as if it could tear on brambles or in
gales, and looking around quickly and ardently at the sound of a
bird-note or the glance of a squirrel-leap; her great eyes peering for
a moment from their widely opened lids, and then disappearing utterly
again under those white veils. Her dark brown, long lashes and broadly
sweeping eyebrows were distinct against the pallor of her skin, which
was so delicately clear, yet vigorous, that I felt its gleam as one
feels the moon, even if I were not looking directly at her. By and by
her cheeks took on a dawn-flush of beautiful pink. The perfection of
her health was shown, until her last sickness, by this girlish glow of
color in her wood-rambles.
Long before we had arrived at a particularly nice flower or species of
moss, she knew it was to be found, and gathered it up as Fate makes a
clean sweep of all its opportunities.
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