So now I said how glad I was
that she had come back from school, though a fine lady now, and no doubt
forgetful of her friends, of myself, who once caught young rabbits and
birds for her, and made pens for the little pink pigs at the orchard
edge, and all of that. But she had no mind, it seemed to me, to talk of
these old days; and though now some sort of wall seemed to me to arise
between us as we sat there on the bank blowing at dandelions and pulling
loose grass blades, and humming a bit of tune now and then as young
persons will, still, thickheaded as I was, it was in some way made
apparent to me that I was quite as willing the wall should be there as
she herself was willing.
My mother had mentioned Miss Grace Sheraton to me before. My father had
never opposed my riding over now and then to the Sheraton gates. There
were no better families in our county than these two. There was no
reason why I should feel troubled. Yet as I looked out into the haze of
the hilltops where the red road appeared to leap off sheer to meet the
distant rim of the Blue Ridge, I seemed to hear some whispered warning.
I was young, and wild as any deer in those hills beyond. Had it been
any enterprise scorning settled ways; had it been merely a breaking of
orders and a following of my own will, I suppose I might have gone on.
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