"Well, I wish our call was over," sighed Cecily. "I can't tell
you how I dread it."
"Now, see here, Sis," I said cheerfully, "let's not think about it
till we get there. It'll only spoil our walk and do no good.
Let's just forget it and enjoy ourselves."
"I'll try," agreed Cecily, "but it's ever so much easier to preach
than to practise."
Our way lay first over a hill top, gallantly plumed with golden
rod, where cloud shadows drifted over us like a gypsying crew.
Carlisle, in all its ripely tinted length and breadth, lay below
us, basking in the August sunshine, that spilled over the brim of
the valley to the far-off Markdale Harbour, cupped in its harvest-
golden hills.
Then came a little valley overgrown with the pale purple bloom of
thistles and elusively haunted with their perfume. You say that
thistles have no perfume? Go you to a brook hollow where they grow
some late summer twilight at dewfall; and on the still air that
rises suddenly to meet you will come a waft of faint, aromatic
fragrance, wondrously sweet and evasive, the distillation of that
despised thistle bloom.
Beyond this the path wound through a forest of fir, where a wood
wind wove its murmurous spell and a wood brook dimpled pellucidly
among the shadows--the dear, companionable, elfin shadows--that
lurked under the low growing boughs.
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