Then, "There she is!" we both exclaimed at once.
Flora, a short way off, stood before us on the grass and smiled
as if her performance was now complete. The next thing she did,
however, was to stoop straight down and pluck--quite as if it
were all she was there for--a big, ugly spray of withered fern.
I instantly became sure she had just come out of the copse.
She waited for us, not herself taking a step, and I was
conscious of the rare solemnity with which we presently
approached her. She smiled and smiled, and we met; but it
was all done in a silence by this time flagrantly ominous.
Mrs. Grose was the first to break the spell: she threw
herself on her knees and, drawing the child to her breast,
clasped in a long embrace the little tender, yielding body.
While this dumb convulsion lasted I could only watch it--
which I did the more intently when I saw Flora's face peep
at me over our companion's shoulder. It was serious now--
the flicker had left it; but it strengthened the pang with which I
at that moment envied Mrs. Grose the simplicity of HER relation.
Still, all this while, nothing more passed between us save
that Flora had let her foolish fern again drop to the ground.
What she and I had virtually said to each other was that
pretexts were useless now. When Mrs. Grose finally got up she
kept the child's hand, so that the two were still before me;
and the singular reticence of our communion was even more
marked in the frank look she launched me.
Pages:
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144