“Look at the hardhack,” Una panted. “Isn’t it lovely? The roadside just pink—magenta! And, oh! there’s arrow head, white arrow head, wading into the water, down there.
“It’s as fond of the mud as you are—when you have the magic ring on.” It was a dark eye which winked slyly now, as Una pointed down a tangled slope that bordered, on one side, the narrow road, or bridle path, at a shallow pond, just snow-flecked with the broad-leaved arrow head. “And, oh-h! such violet asters! And, look there! purple deer grass—its heart of gold. Love-ly!”
There was a little break, a little catch in the voice of the girl whose brain was a wildflower basket.
“It—it makes everything so different, out-of-doors, when you can really identify the flowers and trees; not be, as the Guardian, says, a Mrs. Malaprop among them, going round all the time, miscalling them—or with a ‘]what-d’ye-call-’em’ on your lips.” Una laughed now—and there was a new, a wild-bird frolic in the laughter of this girl who went through life as daintily—as lovingly as if she were “picking a flower.”
“Wake up, Revel!” she said. “You’d never be a Mrs. Malaprop anywhere, would you? You’d always be a good Camp Fire Girl—you’re so knowing.”
And Revel shook her fair head and, snorting—blowing a cloud of silky breath over the compliment, as the girls, in their pretty linen riding habits, cantered onward again.
“Look! Look! Mount Mansfield off there—mighty Mount Mansfield! We’re on higher ground now—and you can just get—a peep—at it,” panted Pemrose by and by, her bare hand stroking Revelation’s neck, as they slackened pace again.
The trail was climbing, the curving mountain bridle path, broad enough, in most places, for two to ride abreast—and far away in the distance there were the cloudy outlines of the giants of the Green Mountains, Mount Mansfield—Camel’s Hump.
“And the hills to the right of us n-now!” It was an ecstatic little cry from Una, her lip-corners curving up towards the dark, curly eyelashes. “See! Two of them, just—just like big green bubbles—twin bubbles, as if they had been blown there, tossed there!”
“But the boulders!” said Pemrose, a minute or two later. “Just as if some old giant had been playing pitch-and-toss with them on the hillside! Goodness! the farmers must have a hard time.”