iking twelve! My darling--my
darling!--good-night.'

CHAPTER VI

The following Saturday afternoon, at three o'clock, the Carton motor
duly arrived at the Rydal cottage door. It was a hot summer day, the
mountains colourless and small under their haze of heat, the woods
darkening already towards the August monotony, the streams low and
shrunken. Lakeland was at the moment when the artists who haunt her
would rather not paint her, remembering the subtleties of spring, and
looking forward to the pageantry of autumn. But for the eye that loves
her she has beauties enough at any time, and no blanching heat and dust
can spoil the lovely or delicate things that lie waiting in the shade of
her climbing oak-woods or on her bare fells, or beside her still lakes.

Nelly took her seat in the landaulette, with Bridget beside her. Milly
and Mrs. Weston admiringly watched their departure from the doorway of
the lodgings, and they were soon speeding towards Grasmere and Dunmail
Raise. Nelly's fresh white dress, aided by the blue coat and shady hat
which George had thought so ravishing, became her well; and she was
girlishly and happily aware of it. Her spirits were high, for there in
the little handbag on her wrist lay George's last letter, received that
morning, short and hurried, written just to catch the post, on his
arrival at the rest camp, thirty miles behind the line. Heart-ache and
fear, if every now and then their black wings brushed her, and far
within, a nerve quivered, were mostly quite forgotten. Youth, the joy of
being loved, the joy of mere living, reclaimed her.

Bridget beside her, in a dark blue cotton, with a very fashionable hat,
looked more than her thirty years, and might almost have been taken for
Nelly's mother. She sat erect, her thin straight shoulders carrying her
powerful head and determined face; and she noticed many things that
quite escaped her sister: the luxury of the motor for instance; the
details of the Farrell livery worn by the two discharged soldiers who
sat in front as chauffeur and footman; and the evident fact that while
small folk must go without servants, the rich seemed to have no
difficulty in getting as many as they wanted.

'I wonder what this motor cost?' she said presently in a speculative
tone, as they sped past the turn to Grasmere church and began to ascend
the pass leading to Keswick.

'Well, we know--about--don't we?' said Nelly vaguely. And she guessed a
sum, at whi