Her talk was about the great jumps she had made--how she snow-balled the
chaps' in winter--how she could slide twice the length of her stick beyond
'Briddles, the cow-boy.'
With this and similar conversation she entertained me.
The grounds were delightfully wild and neglected. But we had now passed
into a vast park beautifully varied with hollows and uplands, and such
glorious old timber massed and scattered over its slopes and levels. Among
these, we got at last into a picturesque dingle; the grey rocks peeped from
among the ferns and wild flowers, and the steps of soft sward along its
sides were dark in the shadows of silver-stemmed birch, and russet thorn,
and oak, under which, in the vaporous night, the Erl-king and his daughter
might glide on their aerial horses.
In the lap of this pleasant dell were the finest blackberry bushes, I
think, I ever saw, bearing fruit quite fabulous; and plucking these, and
chatting, we rambled on very pleasantly.
I had first thought of Milly's absurdities, to which, in description, I
cannot do justice, simply because so many details have, by distance
of time, escaped my recollection.
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