"
CHAPTER LV.
The next morning Kate and Alec rose early, to walk before breakfast to
the top of one of the hills, through a young larch-wood which covered
it from head to foot. The morning was cool, and the sun exultant as a
good child. The dew-diamonds were flashing everywhere, none the less
lovely that they were fresh-made that morning. The lark's song was a
cantata with the sun and the wind and the larch-odours, in short, the
whole morning for the words. How the larks did sing that morning! The
only clouds were long pale delicate streaks of lovely gradations in
gray; here mottled, there swept into curves. It was just the morning to
rouse a wild longing for motion, for the sea and its shore, for endless
travel through an endless region of grace and favour, the sun rising no
higher, the dew lingering on every blade, and the lark never wearying
for his nest. Kate longed for some infinitude of change without
vicissitude--ceaseless progress towards a goal endlessly removed! She
did not know that the door into that life might have been easier to
find in that ugly chapel than even here in the vestibule of heaven.
"My nurse used to call the lark 'Our Lady's hen,'" said Kate.
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