He perceived too her childish pleasure in each
fresh incident and experience of the English winter, which proved to
her anew that she had come home; and he flattered himself, as he went
straight to her side, that his coming had at least no dimming effect on
the radiance that had been there before.
"I believe you are not pining for the Mediterranean!" he said, laughing,
as they walked on together.
In a smiling silence she drew in a great breath of the frosty air while
her eyes ranged along the chalk down, on the western edge of which they
were walking, and then over the plain at their feet, the smoke wreaths
that hung above the villages, the western sky filled stormily with the
purples and grays and crimsons of the sunset, the woods that climbed the
down, or ran in a dark rampart along its crest.
"No one can ever love it as much as I do!"--she said at last--"because I
have been an exile. That will be my advantage always."
"Your compensation--perhaps."
"Mrs. Colwood puts it that way. Only I don't like having my grievance
taken away."
"Against whom?"
"Ah! not against papa!" she said, hurriedly--"against Fate!"
"If you dislike being deprived of a grievance--so do I.
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