She longed for
some spot where she could weep unseen; where the sunshine and the blue
sky would not mock her grief; and seeing in front of her a little clump
of alders, which grew beside the stream, in a bend that in winter was
marshy, she hastened towards it.
Madame St. Lo saw her figure blend with the shadow of the trees.
"Quite _a la_ Ronsard, I give my word!" she murmured. "And now she is
out of sight! _La, la_! I could play at the game myself, and carve
sweet sorrow on the barks of trees, if it were not so lonesome! And if I
had a man!"
And gazing pensively at the stream and the willows, my lady tried to work
herself into a proper frame of mind; now murmuring the name of one
gallant, and now, finding it unsuited, the name of another. But the soft
inflection would break into a giggle, and finally into a yawn; and, tired
of the attempt, she began to pluck grass and throw it from her. By-and-by
she discovered that Madame Carlat and the women, who had their place a
little apart, had disappeared; and affrighted by the solitude and
silence--for neither of which she was made--she sprang up and stared
about her, hoping to discern them. Right and left, however, the sweep of
hillside curved upward to the skyline, lonely and untenanted; behind her
the castled rock frowned down on the rugged gorge and filled it with
dispiriting shadow.
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