"Aren't those blue gentians
lovely?"
Tony glanced at the few vividly blue flowers the girl was jealously
clasping. She had walked far in search of them and valued them accordingly.
"Do you want some?" he asked eagerly.
Ann nodded.
"Isn't it getting rather late in the year to find them, though?" she said
doubtfully.
The girl with the flowers, overhearing, turned to her with a friendly
smile.
"There are very few left," she vouchsafed. "I've been hunting everywhere
for them. But you may find one or two over there." She pointed to a distant
slope.
Tony's eyes followed her gesture. Then he glanced down at Ann inquiringly.
"Are you game for so long a walk?" he asked.
"I'm game for anything up in this air," she assured him with conviction.
But, as was not infrequently the case, Ann's spirit outstripped her
physical strength. The slope indicated was much farther away than it
appeared and "the going was bad," as Tony phrased it. Blue gentians proved
tantalisingly elusive, and at length, rather disheartened by their
unprofitable search, Ann came to a standstill.
"I think I'm beginning to feel a keener interest in tea than gentians,
Tony," she confessed at last, ruefully.
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