As the season warmed,
the light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old woman's sleep
would grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long as the glitter
was fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting her impulses or
movements.
At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the
juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures
that feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when
the second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were
following up the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass,
(falling as the waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers
dropping as the grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal
sounds,--_frsh_,--for that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all
pure vowel-sounds for the winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to
the unyielding earth,)--about this time of over-ripe midsummer, the
life of Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and restless instincts.
This was the period of the year when the Rockland people were most
cautious of wandering in the leafier coverts which skirted the base of
The Mountain, and the farmers liked to wear thick, long boots,
whenever they went into the bushes. But Elsie was never so much given
to roaming over The Mountain as at this season; and as she had grown
more absolute and uncontrollable, she was as like to take the night as
the day for her rambles.
At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament
came out in a more striking way than at other times.
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