Then came the highway, and then a long planting of firs, and last of all the dip of a rushing stream pouring down from the hills in a lonely wooded hollow.

The girl loved to explore, and here was a field ripe for adventure.
Soon she grew flushed with the toil and the excitement; climbing the bed of the stream was no child's play, for ugly corners had to be passed, slippery rocks to be skirted, and many breakneck leaps to be effected.
Her spirits rose as the spray from little falls brushed her face and the thick screen of the birches caught in her hair.

When she reached a vantage-rock and looked down on the chain of pools and rapids by which she had come, a cry of delight broke from her lips.

This was living, this was the zest of life! The upland wind cooled her brow; she washed her hands in a rocky pool and arranged her tangled tresses.

What did she care for Mr.Stocks or any man?
He was far down on the lowlands talking his pompous nonsense; she was on the hills with the sky above her and the breeze of heaven around her, free, sovereign, the queen of an airy land.
With fresh wonder she scrambled on till the trees began to grow sparser and an upland valley opened in view.