My Aunt Goldsmith purses
up her lips, and says, "I'll write to advise my sister to send her
daughters to some good school." Ellen, maybe, might bear one, but
ah! the thought of little Rosie in a good school!'
'Like her brother Ulick in a good bank, eh?'
'Why,' he cried, 'they always called me the steady Englishman!'
Albinia laughed, but at that moment the sounds of the hunt again
occupied them, and all were interpreted by Ulick with the keenest
interest, but he would not run away again, though she exhorted him
not to regard her. Presently it swept on out of hearing, and by-and-bye
they reached the summit of the hill, and looked forth on the dark
pine plantations on the opposite undulation, standing out in black
relief against a sky golden with a pale, pure, pearly November sunset,
a 'daffodil sky' flecked with tiny fleeces of soft bright-yellow light,
reminding Albinia of Fouque's beautiful dream of Aslauga's golden
hair showing the gates of Heaven to her devoted knight. She looked
for her companion's sympathy in her admiration, but the woods seemed
to oppress him, and his panting sigh showed how real a thing was _he-men_.
'Oh! my poor sun!' he broke out, 'I pity you for having to go down
before your time into these black, stifling woods that rise up to
smother you like giants--and not into your own broad, cool Atlantic,
laughing up your own sparkles of light.'
'We inland people can hardly appreciate your longing for space.
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