Indeed Curly
would not have let him forget her if he had been so inclined; for he
felt that she was a bond between him and Alec, and he loved Alec the
more devotedly that the rift between their social positions had begun
to show itself. The devotion of the schoolboy to his superior in
schoolboy arts had begun to change into something like the devotion of
the clansman to his chief--not the worst folly the world has known--in
fact not a folly at all, except it stop there: many enthusiasms are
follies only because they are not greater enthusiasms. And not
unfrequently would an odd laugh of consciousness between Annie and
Curly, unexpectedly meeting, reveal the fact that they were both
watching for a peep or a word of Alec.
In due time the harvest came; and Annie could no more keep from
haunting the harvest than the crane could keep from flying south when
the summer is over. She watched all the fields around Glamerton; she
knew what response each made to the sun, and which would first be ripe
for the reaping; and the very day that the sickle was put in, there was
Annie to see and share in the joy. How mysterious she thought those
long colonnades of slender pillars, each supporting its own waving
comet-head of barley! Or when the sun was high, she would lie down on
the ground, and look far into the little forest of yellow polished
oat-stems, stretching away and away into the unseen--alas, so soon to
fall, and leave a naked commonplace behind! If she were only small
enough to go wandering about in it, what wonders might she not
discover!--But I forget that I am telling a story, and not writing a
fairy-tale.
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