Standing with one foot on a limb and the other on one near it, she
grasped a branch above her and began swaying back and forth, with the
vim and abandon of a child in a patent swing.
The tree bent far over as she swung outward, then straightened up and
inclined the other way as her weight passed over to that side. Any one
looking at the picture would have said that a general smash and giving
away were certain, in which case the girl was sure to go spinning
through the limbs and branches, as though driven forth by the springs
within the big gun which fling the young lady outward just as the
showman touches off some powder.
But a green sapling is very elastic, and, although the one climbed by
Nellie bent back and forth like a bow, it did not give way. Her hair
streamed from her head, and there was a thrilling feeling as the wind
whistled by her ears, and she seemed to be shooting like a bird through
space.
All this was well enough, and it was no more than natural that Nellie
should have forgotten several important facts: she was so far from the
highway that she could not see any one passing over it; the rush of the
wind in her ears shut out sounds that otherwise would have been noticed,
and she had gone so far and had lingered so long by the way that it was
time to look for Nick on his return from Dunbarton, even though he was
later than he expected to be.
It was while she was swinging in this wild fashion that her brother
drove by on his way home, without either suspecting how close they were
to each other.
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