“What a silly scene!” she said, and fell—­a little, soft, yielding form—­into his arms.

XV

The church clock of Haggart village had just struck half-past six.  A white, sunny mist enwrapped the park and garden.  Voices and shouts rang through the mist; little could yet be seen, but the lawns and the park seemed to be pervaded with bustle and preparation, and every now and then as the mist drifted groups of workmen could be distinguished, marquees emerged, flags floated, and carts laden with benches and trestle-tables rumbled slowly over the roads and tracks of the park.

The house itself was full of gardeners, arranging banks of magnificent flowers in the hall and drawing-rooms, and superintended by the head gardener, a person of much greater dignity than Ashe himself, who swore at any underling making a noise, as though the slumbers of the “quality” in the big house overhead and the danger of disturbing them were the dearest interests of a burdened life.

As to the mistress of the house, at any rate, there was no need for caution.  The clocks of the house had barely followed the church clock in striking the half-hour when the workmen on the ground floor saw Lady Kitty come down-stairs and go through the drawing-room window into the garden.  There she gave her opinion on the preparations, pushing on afterwards into the park, where she astounded the various contractors and their workmen by her appearance at such an hour, and by the vigor and decision of her orders.  Finally she left the park behind, just as its broad, scorched surfaces began everywhere to shake off the mist, and entered one of the bordering woods.

She had a basket on her arm, and, when she had found for herself a mossy seat amid the roots of a great oak, she unpacked it.  It contained a mass of written pages, some fresh scribbling-paper, ink and pens, and a small portfolio.  When they were all lying on the moss beside her, Kitty turned over the sheets with a loving hand, reading here and there.

“It is good!” she said to herself.  “I vow it is!”

Dipping her pen in the ink, she began upon corrections.  The sun filtered through the thick leafage overhead, touching her white dress, her small shoes, and the masses of her hair.  She wore a Leghorn garden-hat, tied with pink ribbons under her chin, and in her morning freshness and daintiness she looked about seventeen.  The hours of sleep had calmed the restlessness of the wide, brown eyes; they were full now of gentleness and mirth.

“I wonder if he’ll come?”

She looked up and listened.  And as she did so, her eyes and sense were seized with the beauty of the wood.  The mystery of early solitary hours seemed to be still upon it; both in the sunlight and the shadow there was a magic unknown to the later day.  In a clearing before her spread a lake of willow-herb, of a pure bright pink, hemmed in by a golden shore of ragwort.  The splash of color gave Kitty a passionate delight.