So she rode on, straight before her, head high, the sun striking face
and firm, white throat; and in her heart laughed spring eternal, whose
voiceless melody parted her lips.
Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their
perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers
of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she
saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers
flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.
From rock and bridge and mouldy archway tender tendrils of living green
fluttered, brushing her cheeks. Beneath the thickets the under-wood
world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or prowled and cunning
fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and blackbirds; and the big
cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers scuffled among last year's
leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, carolled ecstatically of this
earthly paradise.
It was near Eighty-sixth Street that a girl, splendidly mounted, saluted
her, and wheeling, joined her--a blond, cool-skinned, rosy-tinted,
smoothly groomed girl, almost too perfectly seated, almost too flawless
and supple in the perfect symmetry of face and figure.
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