There was no need of speech. It was
one of those moments in which one does not even say that there are no
words to use; one just regards the thing, like a stretch of open
country. It is contemplation, not comment, that is needed.
Her eyes wandered away presently, with the same tranquility, to the
brightening garden outside; and her slowly awakening mind, expanding
within, sent up a little scrap of quotation to be answered.
"While it was yet early ... there came to the sepulcher." How did it
run? "Mary..." Then she spoke.
"It is Easter Day, Laurie."
The boy nodded gently; and she saw his eyes slowly closing once more;
he was not yet half awake. So she went past him on tiptoe to the
window, turned the handle, and opened the white tall framework-like
door. A gush of air, sweet as wine, laden with the smell of dew and
spring flowers and wet lawns, stole in to meet her; and a blackbird,
in the shrubbery across the garden, broke into song, interrupted
himself, chattered melodiously, and scurried out to vanish in a long
curve behind the yews. The very world itself of beast and bird was
still but half awake, and from the hamlet outside the fence, beyond
the trees, rose as yet no skein of smoke and no sound of feet upon the
cobbles.
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