To Alec, the wind of his
own speed was the river that bore her towards him; the odours were
wafted from her approach; and the sunset sleepiness around was the
exhaustion of the region that longed for her Cyther???an presence.
At last, as he turned a corner of the road, there was the coach; and he
had just time to wheel his pony about before it was up with him. A
little gloved hand greeted him; the window was let down; and the face
he had been longing for shone out lovelier than ever. There was no
inside passenger but herself; and, leaning with one hand on the
coach-door, he rode alongside till they drew near the place where the
gig was waiting for them, when he dashed on, gave his pony to the man,
was ready to help her as soon as the coach stopped, and so drove her
home in triumph to his mother.
Where the coach stopped, on the opposite side of the way, a grassy
field, which fell like a mantle from the shoulders of a hill crowned
with firs, sloped down to the edge of the road. From the coach, the sun
was hidden behind a thick clump of trees, but his rays, now red with
rich age, flowed in a wide stream over the grass, and shone on an old
Scotch fir which stood a yard or two from the highway, making its red
bark glow like the pools which the prophet saw in the desert.
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