On the following Sunday afternoon Thelma sat alone under the wide
blossom-covered porch, reading. Her father and Sigurd,--accompanied by
Errington and his friends,--had all gone for a mountain ramble,
promising to return for supper, a substantial meal which Britta was
already busy preparing. The afternoon was very warm,--one of those long,
lazy stretches of heat and brilliancy in which Nature seems to have lain
down to rest like a child tired of play, sleeping in the sunshine with
drooping flowers in her hands. The very ripple of the stream seemed
hushed, and Thelma, though her eyes were bent seriously on the book she
held, sighed once or twice heavily as though she were tired. There was a
change in the girl,--an undefinable something seemed to have passed over
her and toned down the redundant brightness of her beauty. She was
paler,--and there were darker shadows than usual under the splendor of
her eyes. Her very attitude, as she leaned her head against the dark,
fantastic carving of the porch, had a touch of listlessness and
indifference in it; her sweetly arched lips drooped with a plaintive
little line at the corners, and her whole air was indicative of fatigue,
mingled with sadness.
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