levantly appeared a field planted with potatoes. The potato plants, lusty and strong, in flower, compact in the midst of the woodland, were not unlovely. Neither was the bent old man, Piers's labourer, unlovely in his blue shirt, in his attitude of patient hoeing.
She followed the path, now in the full blaze of sunshine. The woods about were no longer pine, but oaks and birch and maple. In every hollow were gay gatherings of wood lilies, white and purplish pink, and through all the trees sounded the ring of bird song. An oriole flashed. She caught the blue of a jay's swift wing and thought she saw, but was not sure, a scarlet tanager. Then again came the hoof beats. Pheasant was returning. Alayne trembled, looking down on the path, where in the dust lay the little hoofprints.
Pheasant was beside her. She had leaped from her horse. His breathing sounded, quick and passionate. His velvet nose was introduced between the faces of the two girls.
"Pheasant!"
"Alayne!"
Their eyes embraced, their hands touched; they wavered, laughing, then kissed. The horse, puzzled, flung back his head, shaking his bridle.
"Let's sit down in the wood," cried Pheasant. "How splendid our meeting like this! Away from all the family, you know. Those people. Well, we're different, after all, you and I. We can't talk just the same, be ourselves, when they're all about us." And she added, quaintly: "I think you're noble, Alayne! But how can I tell you what I think? I'll never forget how beautiful you were to me. And now you've come back to nurse Eden!"
They sat down among the trees. The grass was long and so tender that it seemed to have grown in a day. The horse began to crop, petulantly jerking up, with a sidewise movement of the head, great succulent mouthfuls. Pheasant sat with her back against a young oak.
On her white forehead, above the pale oval of her face, a lock of dark hair lay like a half-opened fan. Alayne
