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Page 38
One thing only marred her anticipations for the morrow, which was the fear
that Mrs. Watson might be hurt, and make a scene. Happily, Mrs. Hope's
thoughts took the same direction; and by some occult process of influence,
the use of which good wives understand, she prevailed on her refractory
doctor to allow the old lady to be asked to join the party.
So early next morning came a very polite note; and it was proposed that
Phil should ride the doctor's horse, and act as escort to Miss Chase, who
was to go on horseback likewise. No proposal could have been more
agreeable to Phil, who adored horses, and seldom had the chance to mount
one; so every one was pleased, and Mrs. Watson preened her ancestral
feathers with great satisfaction.
"You see, dear, how well it was to give that little hint about the
Reveres and the Abraham Peabodys," she said. Clover felt dreadfully
dishonest; but she dared not confess that she had forgotten all about the
hint, still less that she had never meant to give one. "The better part of
valor is discretion," she remembered; so she held her peace, though her
cheeks glowed guiltily.
At three o'clock they set forth in a light roomy carriage,--not exactly a
carryall, but of the carryall family,--with a pair of fast horses, Miss
Chase and Phil cantering happily alongside, or before or behind, just as
it happened. The sun was very hot; but there was a delicious breeze, and
the dryness and elasticity of the air made the heat easy to bear.
The way lay across and down the southern slope of the plateau on which the
town was built. Then they came to splendid fields of grain and
"afalfa,"--a cereal quite new to them, with broad, very green leaves. The
roadside was gay with flowers,--gillias and mountain balm; high pink and
purple spikes, like foxgloves, which they were told were pentstemons;
painters' brush, whose green tips seemed dipped in liquid vermilion, and
masses of the splendid wild poppies. They crossed a foaming little river;
and a sharp turn brought them into a narrower and wilder road, which ran
straight toward the mountain side. This was overhung by trees, whose shade
was grateful after the hot sun.
Narrower and narrower grew the road, more and more sharp the turns. They
were at the entrance of a deep defile, up which the road wound and wound,
following the links of the river, which they crossed and recrossed
repeatedly. Such a wonderful and perfect little river, with water clear as
air and cold as ice, flowing over a bed of smooth granite, here slipping
noiselessly down long slopes of rock like thin films of glass, there
deepening into pools of translucent blue-green like aqua-marine or beryl,
again plunging down in mimic waterfalls, a sheet of iridescent foam. The
sound of its rush and its ripple was like a laugh. Never was such happy
water, Clover thought, as it curved and bent and swayed this way and that
on its downward course as if moved by some merry, capricious instinct,
like a child dancing as it goes. Regiments or great ferns grew along its
banks, and immense thickets of wild roses of all shades, from deep
Jacqueminot red to pale blush-white. Here and there rose a lonely spike of
yucca, and in the little ravines to right and left grew in the crevices of
the rocks clumps of superb straw-colored columbines four feet high.
Looking up, Clover saw above the tree-tops strange pinnacles and spires
and obelisks which seemed air-hung, of purple-red and orange-tawny and
pale pinkish gray and terra cotta, in which the sunshine and the
cloud-shadows broke in a multiplicity of wonderful half-tints. Above them
was the dazzling blue of the Colorado sky. She drew a long, long breath.
"So this is a canyon," she said. "How glad I am that I have lived to see
one."
"Yes, this is a canyon," Dr. Hope replied. "Some of us think it _the_
canyon; but there are dozens of others, and no two of them are alike. I'm
glad you are pleased with this, for it's my favorite. I wish your father
could see it."
Clover hardly understood what he said she was so fascinated and absorbed.
She looked up at the bright pinnacles, down at the flowers and the sheen
of the river-pools and the mad rush of its cascades, and felt as though
she were in a dream. Through the dream she caught half-comprehended
fragments of conversation from the seat behind. Mrs. Watson was giving her
impressions of the scenery.
"It's pretty, I suppose," she remarked; "but it's so very queer, and I'm
not used to queer things. And this road is frightfully narrow. If a load
of hay or a big Concord coach should come along, I can't think what we
should do. I see that Dr. Hope drives carefully, but yet--You don't think
we shall meet anything of the kind to-day, do you, Doctor?"
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