Burrage's, and that therefore there wasn't much
harm in her just taking this little run on her own responsibility,
especially as she should only be out an hour--which would be just the
duration of Olive's absence. The beauty of the "elevated" was that it
took you up to the Park and brought you back in a few minutes, and you
had all the rest of the hour to walk about and see the place. It was so
pleasant now that one was glad to see it twice over. The long, narrow
enclosure, across which the houses in the streets that border it look at
each other with their glittering windows, bristled with the raw delicacy
of April, and, in spite of its rockwork grottoes and tunnels, its
pavilions and statues, its too numerous paths and pavements, lakes too
big for the landscape and bridges too big for the lakes, expressed all
the fragrance and freshness of the most charming moment of the year.
Once Verena was fairly launched the spirit of the day took possession of
her; she was glad to have come, she forgot about Olive, enjoyed the
sense of wandering in the great city with a remarkable young man who
would take beautiful care of her, while no one else in the world knew
where she was. It was very different from her drive yesterday with Mr.
Burrage, but it was more free, more intense, more full of amusing
incident and opportunity. She could stop and look at everything now, and
indulge all her curiosities, even the most childish; she could feel as
if she were out for the day, though she was not really--as she had not
done since she was a little girl, when in the country, once or twice,
when her father and mother had drifted into summer quarters, gone out of
town like people of fashion, she had, with a chance companion, strayed
far from home, spent hours in the woods and fields, looking for
raspberries and playing she was a gipsy.
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