Even the gulls, wheeling and darting along the shore,
had a new note in their raucous crying. None of these first undertones
of the spring symphony went unmarked by Doris Cleveland. She could
hear and feel. She could respond to subtle, external stimuli. She
could interpret her thoughts and feelings with apt phrases, with a
whimsical humor,--sometimes with an appealing touch of wistfulness.
At the Beach Avenue entrance to the park she would release herself
from the hand by which Hollister guided her through the throngs on the
sidewalks or the traffic of the crossings, and along the open way she
would keep step with him easily and surely, her cheeks glowing with
the brisk movement; and she could tell him with uncanny exactness when
they came abreast of the old elk paddock and the bowling greens, or
the rock groynes and bathhouse at Second Beach. She knew always when
they turned the wide curve farther out, where through a fringe of
maple and black alder there opened a clear view of all the Gulf, with
steamers trailing their banners of smoke and the white pillar of
Point Atkinson lighthouse standing guard at the troubled entrance to
Howe Sound.
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