I've looked at magnificent scenery--
and then I'd shut my eyes and conjure up that picture.
Oh, listen to the wind keening in the trees! How I've longed
for that music!"
He took her to the orchard and followed out his crafty plan
of surprise perfectly. She rewarded him by doing exactly what
he had dreamed of her doing, clapping her hands and crying out:
"Oh, daddy! Why, daddy!"
They finished up with the shore, and then at sunset they came back
and sat down on the old garden bench. Before them a sea of splendour,
burning like a great jewel, stretched to the gateways of the west.
The long headlands on either side were darkly purple, and the sun left
behind him a vast, cloudless arc of fiery daffodil and elusive rose.
Back over the orchard in a cool, green sky glimmered a crystal planet,
and the night poured over them a clear wine of dew from her airy chalice.
The spruces were rejoicing in the wind, and even the battered firs
were singing of the sea. Old memories trooped into their hearts
like shining spirits.
"Baby Blossom," said Old Man Shaw falteringly, "are you quite
sure you'll be contented here? Out there"--with a vague sweep
of his hand towards horizons that shut out a world far removed
from White Sands--"there's pleasure and excitement and all that.
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