How his eyes exulted over her as she tripped on before him down the
steep, winding, rocky paths! As he followed he often wondered where
her feet had found their secure support, so rugged was the way. Yet on
she glanced before him, swaying, bending to avoid branches, or pushing
them aside, her motions instinct with vitality and natural grace.
Once, however, he had a fright. She was taking a deep descent swiftly,
when her skirt caught on a stubborn projecting stump of a sapling,
and it appeared that she would fall headlong; but by some surprising,
self-recovering power, which seemed exerted even in the act of
falling, she lay before him in the path, almost as if reclining easily
upon her elbow, and was nearly on her feet again before he could reach
her side.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, most solicitously, brushing off the dust
from her dress.
"Not in the least," she replied, laughing.
"Well," he exclaimed, "I don't believe you or any one else could do
that so handsomely again if you tried a thousand times! Don't try,
please. I carried you the other day some little distance, and found
that you were no longer a little ghost."
"You carried me, Graydon? I thought the people from the farmhouse
came.
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