"And Scipio," she said, turning as she stepped out on the turf, "will
like a run in the woods."
She had walked on, maybe a hundred paces, before the absurdity of it
struck her. She had been thinking of Mr. Pope's line:
"When wild in woods the noble savage ran."
And at the notion of Scipio, in gilt-laced hat and livery, tearing
wildly through the undergrowth in the joy of liberty, she halted and
laughed aloud.
She was smiling yet when, at a turning of the leafy lane, she came
upon the prettiest innocent sight. On a cushion of moss beside the
path, two small children--a boy and a girl--lay fast asleep.
The boy's arm was flung around his sister's shoulders, and across his
thighs rested a wand or thin pole topped with a May-garland of wild
hyacinths, red-robin and painted birds' eggs. A tin cup, brought to
collect pence for the garland, glittered in the cart-rut at their
feet. It had rolled down the mossy bank as the girl's fingers
relaxed in sleep.
They were two little ones of Troy, strayed hither from the
merrymaking; and at first Miss Marty had a mind to wake them, seeing
how near they lay to the river's brink. But noting that a fallen log
safeguarded them from this peril, she fumbled for the pocket beneath
her skirt, dropped a sixpence with as little noise as might be into
the tin cup, and tiptoed upon her way.
About three hundred yards from the village she met another pair of
children; and, soon after, a score or so in a cluster, who took toll
of her in pence; for almost everyone carried a garland.
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