They looked for the last time
in Mirror Pool, and saw the reflection of their faces--rather grave
faces just then, over the leave-taking.
The water-mirror might have been glad to keep the picture for ever on
its surface--Margery with her sleek braids and serene forehead; with
Polly, saucy nose and mischievous eyes, laughing at you like a merry
water-sprite; Bell, with her brilliant cheeks glowing like two roses
just fallen in the brook; and Gold Elsie, who, if you had put a frame
of green leaves about her delicate face and yellow locks, would have
looked up at you like a water-lily.
They wafted a farewell to Pico Negro, and having got rid of the boys,
privately embraced a certain Whispering Tree under whose singing
branches they had been wont to lie and listen to all the murmuring
that went on in the forest.
Then they clambered into the great thorough-brace wagon, where they
all sat in gloomy silence for ten minutes, while Dicky's tan terrier
was found for the fourth time that morning; and the long train, with
its baggage-carts, its saddle-horses and its dogged little pack-
mules, moved down the rocky steeps that led to civilisation. The
gate that shut them in from the county road and the outer world was
opened for the last time, and shut with a clang, and it was all over-
-their summer in a canyon!
Footnotes:
{1} Foot-notes by a rival of the Countess.
{1a} Is that spelled right?
{1b} Fifty miles an hour, Jack says.
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