rapturously. Certainly it was very good to be away from the Van
Heigens, away from the ceaseless little reiteration of Mevrouw's talk,
from the minute, punctilious conventions, from Joost's quiet gaze,
from the proximity of the hateful, necessary blue daffodil. With a
violent rebound Julia shook off the feeling that had been growing on
her of late, and was once more possibly reckless, but certainly free,
and no longer under the spell of her surroundings. Her young blood
coursed quickly, her eyes shone, the basket she carried grew light;
she might have sung as she went had not Nature, in withholding the
ability, also kindly withheld the inclination.

Soon after leaving the town, a side road cut into the main one; a
waggon was lumbering down it at no great pace, but just before the
branch road joined the main one the driver cracked his whip loudly, so
that his team of young horses started forward suddenly. Too suddenly
for the comprehension of some children who were playing in the road;
for a second or more they looked at the approaching waggon, then, when
the necessity dawned upon them, they ran for safety, one one way, one
another, and the third, a baby boy, like a chicken, half across the
way to the right, then, after a scurry in the middle, back again to
the left, under the horses' feet.

Julia shouted to him, but in the excitement of the moment she spoke
English, and not Dutch, though it hardly mattered, for the little boy
was far too frightened to understand anything. It certainly would have
fared badly with him had she not followed up her cry by darting into
the road, seizing him by the shoulder, and flinging him with
considerable force against the green wayside bank. She was only just
in time; as it was, the foremost horse struck her shoulder and sent
her rolling into the dust.