A lark was singing blithely overhead, and the grasshoppers filled the
air with joyful chirpings. Anna's face beamed with content.
"If life could be always like to-day!" she thought, "oh, how nice it
would be!"
[Sidenote: In the Marsh]
Presently she reached the meadow with the brook running across it, and
she gave a cry of delight; down in the marsh into which the brook ran
across the sloping field she saw a mass of bright dark-blue. These were
gentian-flowers, opening blue and green blossoms to the sunshine, and in
front of them the meadow itself was white with a sprinkling of grass of
Parnassus.
Anna had a passionate love of flowers, and, utterly heedless of all but
the joy of seeing them, she ran down the slope, and only stopped when
she found herself ankle-deep in the marsh below, in which the gentian
grew.
This sobered her excitement. She pulled out one foot, and was shocked to
find that she had left her shoe behind in the black slime; she was
conscious, too, that her other foot was sinking deeper and deeper in the
treacherous marsh. There was nothing to hold by, there was not even an
osier near at hand; behind the gentian rose a thicket of rosy-blossomed
willow-herb, and here and there was a creamy tassel of meadowsweet, but
even these were some feet beyond her grasp.
Anna looked round her in despair. From the next field came a clicking
sound, and as she listened she guessed that old Andreas was busy mowing.
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