If the spruce had snapped, I would have caught at the end of your sapling like any drowning rat--or man.

Allow me to thank you." She had stepped down to the level strip of sand on which the colt was weakly struggling to rise to its feet.

She was breathing quickly.

Her face was still pale.

She was without a hat, and as she bent for a moment over the colt Aldous felt his eyes drawn irresistibly to the soft thick coils of her hair, a glory of colour that made him think of the lustrous brown of a ripe wintelberry.