The setting was all
that we could have hoped for,--great moss-grown rocks wet and slippery,
deep shade which almost made us doubt the existence of the hot August
sunshine at the edge of the forest, cool water dripping and tinkling. A
half-dozen great trees had been so undermined by the action of the water
long ago that they had tumbled headlong into the stream bed. There they
lay, heads down, crisscross--one completely spanning the brook just below
the spring--their tangled roots like great dragons twisting and thrusting
at the shadows. The water trickled slowly over the smooth rocky bottom as
if reluctant to leave a spot enchanted. A few yards below, the overflow
from Indian Spring joined the main stream, and their waters mingled in a
pretty little cataract. We went below and looked back at it. How it
wrinkled and paused over the level spaces, played with the bubbles in the
eddies, and ran laughing and turning somersaults wherever the ledges were
abrupt.
--Mary Rodgers Miller: _The Brook Book_. (Copyright, 1902, by Doubleday,
Page & Co.)
2. Rowena was tall in stature, yet not so much so as to attract
observation on account of superior height. Her complexion was exquisitely
fair, but the noble cast of her head and features prevented the insipidity
which sometimes attaches to fair beauties. Her clear blue eyes, which sat
enshrined beneath a graceful eyebrow of brown, sufficiently marked to give
expression to the forehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as to melt,
to command as well as to beseech.
Pages:
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116