Madelon was
tired out; she knew it was too early for any train to start
for Spa, and nothing better occurred to her than to sit down
and rest once more in a sheltered corner amongst some bushes
under a big hawthorn-tree growing on the bank of the river;
and in a few minutes she was again sound asleep, whilst the
mass of snowy blossoms above her head grew rosy in the
sunlight.
It was broad daylight when she awoke again, and sat up rubbing
her eyes, and feeling very chilly, and stiff, and sleepy, but
with a quickly succeeding delight in the bright May morning, a
joyous sense of escape and freedom, of all that she had
accomplished already, and was going to accomplish on this day
to which she had looked forward so long. Everything looked
gold and blue in the early sunlight; the river danced and
sparkled, the poplar-trees were now green, now silvery-grey,
as they waved about in the breeze; the country people were
passing along the road, laughing and chattering gaily in their
queer _patois_. The dark night seemed to have vanished into
indefinite remoteness, like some incongruous dream, which, on
waking, one recalls with difficulty and wonder, in the midst
of bright familiar surroundings.
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