And with a sisterly embrace they sought their private apartments.
"O, show me a place like the wild-wood home, Where the air is fragrant and free, And the first pure breathings of morning come In a gush of melody. When day steals away, with a young bride's blush, To the soft green couch of night, And the moon throws o'er, with a holy hush, Her curtain of gossamer light."
Alone Annie Evalyn was walking in the summer twilight over the rough road toward Scraggiewood.
Near two months had elapsed since she last visited her Aunt Patty at the rock-built cottage, and she pictured in her mind, as she walked on, the surprise and good-natured chiding which would mark her old aunt's reception. She gazed upward at the tall forest trees swaying to and fro in the light evening breeze, and far into its dim, mazy depths, where gray rocks lay clad in soft, green moss, and gnarled, uprooted trunks overgrown with clinging vines, and pale, delicate flowers springing beautiful from their decay. She listened to the murmuring of the brook in its rocky bed, and a thousand memories of other years rushed on her soul. The strange, fast-coming fancies that thronged her brain when she in early childhood roamed those dark, solemn woods, or sat at night on the lowly cottage stile, gazing on the wild, grotesque shadows cast by the moonbeams from the huge, forest trees; or how she listened to the solemn hootings of the lonesome owl, the monotonous cuckoo, and sudden whippoorwill; or laughed at the glowworm's light in the dark swamps, and asked her aunty if they were not a group of stars come down to play bo-peep in the meadows.
And then she thought of George Wild, her early playfellow. He was away now, in a distant part of the country, whither he had been sent by his father to learn the carpenter's trade. He had come to bid her good-by with tears in his eyes, not so much at parting from _her_, she fancied, as from dread of the active life before him. It would be hard to tell whether Annie felt most pity or contempt for his weakness. He was the only friend of her early childhood, and, _as_ such, she had still a warm, tender feeling at her heart for him; and, had he possessed a becoming energy and manliness of character, this childish feeling might have deepened into strong, enduring affection as years advanced. But Annie Evalyn could never love George Wild as he _was_; and thus she thought as she brushed away a tear that had unconsciously started during her meditations, and found herself at the door of her aunt's cottage. She bounded over the threshold and into the old lady's arms, bestowing a shower of kisses ere poor Aunt Patty could sufficiently collect herself and recover from the surprise to return her darling's lavish caresses.