The trees grew thickly down the slope, which the church crowned, and at the bottom of the slope rushed the river, which she heard like a refrain through the intermittent soughing of the trees.

A whippoorwill was singing somewhere out there, and the katydids shrieked so high that they almost surmounted dreams.

She could smell wild grapes and pine and other mingled odors of unknown herbs, and the earth itself.

There had been a hard shower that afternoon, and the earth still seemed to cry out with pleasure because of it.

Maria had worn her old shoes to church, lest she spoil her best ones; but she wore her pretty pink gingham gown, and her hat with a wreath of rosebuds, and she felt to the utmost the attractiveness of her appearance.