It was by a spontaneous impulse of her genius, and with no voluntary
foreshaping, that she had grouped the previous tales; but no drama
could have been more artistically constructed than the steps whereby
she led me onward to the denouement; and the look, tone, words,
with which she told it, were fluent with melody as the song of an
improvisatrice.
Scarcely had she finished, when, offering some light refreshment,--as
it was now past noon,--she proposed a walk in the open air. She led
the way to Bussey's wood, her favorite retreat during the past year,
where she had thought and read, or talked with intimate friends. We
climbed the rocky path, resting a moment or two at every pretty point,
till, reaching a moss-cushioned ledge near the summit, she seated
herself. For a time she was silent, entranced in delighted communion
with the exquisite hue of the sky, seen through interlacing boughs
and trembling leaves, and the play of shine and shadow over the wide
landscape. But soon, arousing from her reverie, she took up the thread
of the morning's talk. My part was to listen; for I was absorbed in
contemplating this, to me, quite novel form of character. It has
been seen how my early distaste for Margaret's society was gradually
changed to admiration.
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