United States or New Caledonia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Yet she had treated the Sarratts cavalierly to begin with, just because they were outsiders, and because 'Willy' was making such a fuss with them; for she was almost as easily jealous in her brother's case as in Marsworth's.
But the spectacle of Sarratt's death, and Nelly's agony, together with her own quick divination of Nelly's inner mind, had worked profoundly on Cicely, and Marsworth had never shewn himself a better fellow than in his complete sympathy with her, and his eager pity for the Sarratts. 'I haven't the heart to tease him' Cicely had said candidly after her return to England.
The lady's face was purple with exertion, and in her best days she could never have been other than plain; her figure was shapeless. She stopped the pony as she neared the Sarratts, and addressed them panting. 'I beg your pardon! but have you by chance seen another lady carrying a bag like mine?
In the background, the stout lady whom the Sarratts had met on Loughrigg Terrace, Miss Hester Martin, was talking to Miss Farrell, while Bridget Cookson was carrying on conversation with a tall officer who carried his arm in a sling, and was apparently yet another convalescent officer from the Carton hospital, whom Cicely Farrell had brought over in her motor to tea at her brother's cottage.
There had been rain, torrential rain, just before the Sarratts arrived, so that the river was full and noisy, and all the little becks clattering down the fell, in their haste to reach the lake, were boasting to the summer air, as though in forty-eight hours of rainlessness they would not be as dry and dumb as ever again.
The Sarratts could only say that they had not come across any other moss-gatherer on the road. The strange lady sighed but with a half humorous, half philosophical lifting of the eyebrows. 'It was very stupid of me to miss her but you really can't come to grief on these fells in broad daylight.
'It's so easy it's hardly worth doing, said Cicely, sleepily. Then after a pause 'Ah, isn't that the motor? Meanwhile the little hired motor from Ambleside had dropped the Sarratts on the Easedale road, and carried Bridget away in an opposite direction, to the silent but great relief of the newly-married pair.
'Oh, but George wants to take me to Easedale, said Nelly under her breath. 'It will be our last long walk. Bridget had to submit to be torn away. A little motor was waiting outside. It had brought the Sarratts and Bridget from Rydal, and was to take Bridget home, dropping the Sarratts at Grasmere for an evening walk.
Word Of The Day