d of how he
would like to be a holy hermit and live alone there with a dog and a gun
and a rod and God; while Killigrew was divided between trying to signal
a question to Hilaria and wishing he could paint the dim room with its
splashes of sun and wondering what colours he could get that would be
pure enough; and Hilaria was wishing Ishmael would give her a chance to
whisper to him the news she was burning to impart and not merely stare
at her and everything else with that blank gaze that always seemed to go
through her to the wall beyond. And most of the boys itched to get out
for an hour or so before supper, while the little girls thoroughly
enjoyed themselves and Mr. Eliot wished the whole lot of them, or
himself, elsewhere. At last the wheezy piano sounded its last note, the
faded lady who once a week thumped it for an hour and the sum of
two-and-sixpence gathered her shawl about her and tied the ribbons of
her bonnet beneath her pointed chin: the little girls were also
enshawled by prim figures who now materialised from the shadowy seats
where they had waited for this moment; and the boys, with a hurried
touching of caps to Mr. Eliot, went clattering out through the flagged
and panelled passage into the High Street. Hilaria, by the door, caught
Ishmael's sleeve as he rose from changing his shoes--he was always the
last when a fussy quickness was in question--and, ignoring the hovering
Killigrew, said in her low husky voice:

"Tell them I can be on the moor in half an hour, will you? I must go and
take off this beastly thing first ..." She kicked a protesting leg
against the framework of her crinoline, that shot out in front of her
alarmingly.

"Tell who?" asked Ishmael, densely.

"All of them, of course. Killigrew and Moss minor and the Polkinghornes
and Carminow--not Doughty; I didn't like him last time--I don't know
why ..." She broke off and bent forward, her tones took on a thrill;
"I've got it," she announced.

"The new number of 'The Woman in White'? Oh, Hilaria!..."

"It wasn't easy, I can tell you, and we shall have to hurry with it, but
it's in my shoe-bag now."

"Must you go home and change? It'll give us so little time. It's dark at
eight, and we have to be in to supper then, anyway."

Hilaria hesitated, still slightly leaning forward like a great
full-petalled blossom heavy with approaching night.

"I suppose I could manage.... Papa goes on to give a French lesson
before he comes home.... It w