Then came a still more desultory
wandering of couples to and fro among the shadowy intricacies of the
wood; and Clarissa having for once contrived to get rid of the inevitable
Captain, who had been beguiled away to inspect some remote grotto under
convoy of Barbara Fermor, was free to wander alone whither she pleased. She
was rather glad to be alone for a little. Marley Wood was not new to her.
It had been a favourite spot of her brother Austin's, and the two had spent
many a pleasant day beneath the umbrage of those old forest-trees; she,
sitting and reading, neither of them talking very much, only in a spasmodic
way, when Austin was suddenly moved by some caprice to pour out his
thoughts into the ear of his little sister--strange bitter thoughts they
were sometimes; but the girl listened as to the inspirations of genius.
Here he had taught her almost all that she had ever learned of landscape
art. She had only improved by long practice upon those early simple
lessons. She was glad to be alone, for these old memories were sad ones.
She wandered quite away from the rest, and, sitting down upon a bank that
sloped towards a narrow streamlet, began to sketch stray tufts and clusters
of weedy undergrowth--a straggling blackberry-branch, a bit of ivy creeping
sinuously along the uneven ground--in an absent desultory way, thinking of
her brother and the days gone by. She had been alone like this about half
an hour, when the crackling of the brambles near her warned her of an
approaching footstep.
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