In April, when the sunny buds were showing forth their little frills; and birds, that love to hop sideways and try the toleration of the sprays that they are picking at, were almost too busy to chirp, and hung as happily as possible upside down, shaking the flutter of young green lace; while at the same time (for it is a season of great coincidence) pigs reared aloft little corkscrew tails, and scorning their nose-rings, employed them as thimbles for making a punch in the broidery of turf; also when--if the above is not enough--ducks and geese, and cocks and hens, and even the dogs (who regard green grass as an emetic mainly) were all, without knowing it, beginning to wag themselves as they walked or waddled, and to shine in the sun, and to look very large in their own eyes and those of their consorts; neither was there any man who could ride a horse, without knowing how--unless he first had starved him;--at this young jump of the year and of life, Grace Oglander wanted to go for a walk.
She had not by any means been buried in the haunted quarry; neither had she as yet required burial in any place. On the contrary, here she walked more blooming and lovely than even her custom was; and the spring sun glistening upon the gold letters of her tombstone at Beckley, ordered by her good Aunt Fermitage--the same sun (without any strain of his eyes at all likely to turn him to a Strabo) was pleasantly making and taking light in the fluctuations of her growing hair.
Her bright hair (which had been so cruelly cropped) instead of being the worse for the process, was waving and glowing again in vast multiplicity of vigour; like a specimen golden geranium shorn to double the number of its facets; and the blue in the spring of her eyes was enough to dissatisfy the sun with his own sky. However, he showed no discontent, but filled the young wood with cheerful rays, and the open glades with merriment, and even the sombre heart of labouring man with streaks of liveliness. For here were comforts that come in, without the eye considering them; and pleasures, which when thought of fly; and delicate delights, that have no idea of being delightful.
Hereupon the proper thing is for something very harsh to break in, and discomfit all the wandering vision of earthly happiness. But the proper thing, in the present instance, showed its propriety by absence. Nothing broke the flow of sunshine and the eddy of soft shade! unless it were a little ruffle of the south wind seeking leaves before they were quite ready; or the rustle of a rabbit, anxious about his family; or the flutter of a bird, uncertain where to stand and sing his best.