Page 97 (1/1)
The unusual stillness of the house in the latesunshine was pleasant to Miss Landis She had risen very late, unconscious of the stir and movement before dawn; and it was only when a maid told her, as she came fro, and concluded, with an odd, happy sense of relief, that she was al from her bedrooli herself in the forward seat of a Mercedes, and Beverly Plank clihimself into the tonneau; and away they rolled, faster, faster, rushing out into thestreak of distant forest already began to brighten, edged with the first rays of watery sunshine
So she had the big house to herself--every bit of it and with it freedoation, from comment, from demand or exaction; freedom from restraint; liberty to roam about, to read, to dream, to idle, to remember! Ah, that hat she needed--a quiet interval in this hurrying youth of hers to catch her breath once more, and stand still, and look back a day or two and remember
So, to breakfast all alone was delicious; to stroll, unhurried, to the sideboard and leisurely choose a and cereal; to saunter out into the freshness of the world and breathe it, and feel the sun war cheek and throat, and the little breezes froht strands of her hair
In the increasing brilliancy of the sunshine she stretched out her hands, warht twist therant hearth of the world, she stood, sweet and fresh as the aze intensely blue with the tint of the purple sea, sensitive lips scarcely parting in the drea srew on land and water, penetrating her body, a faintly delicious glow responded in her heart,--nothing at first wistful in the serene sense of well-being, stretching her rounded arms skyward in the unaccustomed luxury of a liberty which had become the naively unconscious licence of a child The poise of sheer health stretched her to tiptoe; then the graceful tension relaxed, and her shtened, and fell lihtened, confronting the sea