Page:Alice Lauder.pdf/154
existence in this sunshiny corner of the world. So quiet and dreamy it often seems to me that I feel as if I were living through a sort of ‘Entr’acte’ in which we listen to the music and look at the spectators, but feel no particular anxiety about the play. What will be in the next act? This question often occurs to me, but I put off answering it, like a tiresome letter, from one day to another. I must wait to see what the next few weeks will bring forth in the way of light and leading.
“A curious thing happened to me the other day which gave me new heart and hope for the future. Last Sunday afternoon I took the two children for a long walk over the hills behind the village, leading the pony in case anyone of our company knocked up. The road turns its back to the sea, and, winding up a steep bit of hill, suddenly falls into a quiet green pastoral valley, which looks as if it were fast asleep and had never waked since the beginning of the world. It was a grey, still, windless afternoon, wintry in tone and colouring, but mild; underneath all the stillness you seemed to hear faintly, and at a great distance, the triumphal march and merry music of the coming summer. The green smooth pasture slopes downward with soft restful curves for three or four miles of the valley, and then