"Stevenson_Markheim" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stevenson Robert Louis)

They caught butterflies; they picked flowers; they ran; they lingered
by the wayside; they sang; they climbed, and he marvelled at her easy
speed. Nothing seemed to tire her, and everything seemed to delight
her--the flowers, the birds, the clouds, the grasses, and the
fragrance of the pine woods.

"Is it not good to live?" she cried. "Is it not splendid to take in
the scented air? Draw in as many long breaths as you can. Isn't it
good? Don't you feel now as though you were ready to move mountains? I
do. What a dear old nurse Nature is! How she pets us, and gives us the
best of her treasures!"

Her happiness invaded Oswald Everard's soul, and he felt like a
school-boy once more, rejoicing in a fine day and his liberty, with
nothing to spoil the freshness of the air, and nothing to threaten the
freedom of the moment.

"Is it not good to live?" he cried. "Yes, indeed it is, if we know how
to enjoy."

They had come upon some haymakers, and the little girl hastened up to
help them, laughing and talking to the women, and helping them to pile
up the hay on the shoulders of a broad-backed man, who then conveyed
his burden to a pear-shaped stack. Oswald Everard watched his
companion for a moment, and then, quite forgetting his dignity as an
amateur tenor singer, he too lent his aid, and did not leave off until
his companion sank exhausted on the ground.

"Oh," she laughed, "what delightful work for a very short time! Come
along; let us go into that brown chatlet yonder and ask for some milk.
I am simply parched with thirst. Thank you, but I prefer to carry my
own flowers."

"What an independent little lady you are!" he said.

"It is quite necessary in our profession, I can assure you," she said,
with a tone of mischief in her voice. "That reminds me that my
profession is evidently not looked upon with any favour by the
visitors at the hotel. I am heartbroken to think that I have not won
the esteem of that lady in the billycock hat. What will she say to you
for coming out with me? And what will she say of me for allowing you
to come? I wonder whether she will say, 'How unfeminine!' I wish I
could hear her!"

"I don't suppose you care," he said. "You seem to be a wild little
bird."

"I don't care what a person of that description says," replied his
companion.