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The result of such thoughts was that after lunch she disregarded her hostess's preparations and set out for a long hill walk Like all perfectly healthy people, much exercise was as welco; fifteen miles in an afternoon an exaltation She reached the moor beyond the policies, and, once past this rushy wilderness, cae which she crossed lightly without a tre of firs, and last of all the dip of a rushing streairl loved to explore, and here was a field ripe for adventure

Soon she grew flushed with the toil and the excite the bed of the strealy corners had to be passed, slippery rocks to be skirted, and many breakneck leaps to be effected Her spirits rose as the spray from little falls brushed her face and the thick screen of the birches caught in her hair When she reached a vantage-rock and looked down on the chain of pools and rapids by which she had co, this was the zest of life! The upland wind cooled her brow; she washed her hands in a rocky pool and arranged her tangled tresses What did she care for Mr Stocks or anyhis pompous nonsense; she was on the hills with the sky above her and the breeze of heaven around her, free, sovereign, the queen of an airy land

With fresh wonder she scrarow sparser and an upland valley opened in vie the burn was quiet, running in long shining shallows and falling over little rocks into deep brown pools where the trout darted On either side rose the gates of the valley--two craggy knolls each with a few trees on its face Beyond was a green lawnlike place with a great confusion of blue mountains hemmed around its head Here, if anywhere, priht with pleasure, sat on a green knoll, too rapt with the sight for word orat a feast, she walked up the banks of the burn, now high above a trough of rock, non in a green winding hollow Suddenly she came on the spirits of the place in the shape of two boys down on their faces groping a the stones of a pool