Cold, though it was, she must wait a minute or two and rest before attempting the ascent of the slope.
Damaris sat down, pulling her skirts as low as they would come over her bare legs, and clasping her hands round her knees, bowed, huddled together to gain, if it might be, some sensation of warmth.

For a little she thought of that only--warmth--her mind otherwise a blank.

But soon the consuming sadness of the place in the waning light penetrated her imagination, penetrated, indeed, her whole being.

Only a few hours ago she had danced here, in ecstasy born of the sunshine, the colour, the apparently inexhaustible beauty of things uncreated by, and independent of, the will and work of man.

Contrast that scene, and the radiant emotion evoked by it, with this?
Which was real, the enduring revelation?
Was this truth; the other no more than mirage--an exquisite dissembling and lovely lie?
Such thoughts are hardly wholesome at eighteen--hardly wholesome perhaps at any age, if life is to be lived sweetly, with honest profit to one's own soul and to the souls of others.