LONDON
What can't be appreciated can always be ridiculed--whether it's Old
Masters, new waltzes, or a wife's Easter bonnet--and this is the
reason we have always had such reams of journalistic "fun" at the
expense of the broad English "a" and the narrow English view.
For my part, I consider that--next to the French in New Orleans--the
English in England are the golden-ruliest people to be found in
profane history.
You'll find that they're "insular" only when they're traveling off
their dear island--and it's homesickness, after all, which makes them
so disagreeably arrogant.
To be sure, the Frenchman in New Orleans will, if you ask him for a
word of direction toward the Old Absinthe House, take you into his
private office, draw for you a diagram of the whole city, advise you
at length not to go unescorted into the Market, then follow you to the
door with the final warning: "And it would be well for you to observe
a certain degree of caution, my dear young lady, for our city is
filled with wickedness, and your eyes are--_pardon?_--most charming!"
This is delightful, of course, and by far the most romantic thing in
the way of adventure America has to offer, but rambling around London
presents a dearer and more home-like charm.
The Englishman who directs you to a church, or a university square,
stops to say nothing about your eyes--much less would he mention the
existence of good and evil--but he points out to you the tomb, or
chained Bible, or famous man's pew you are seeking, then glides
modestly away before you've had time to say: "It's awfully good of you
to take all this trouble for a stranger!"
But the truth of the matter is that you don't in the least feel
yourself a stranger in London, and you like your kindly Englishman so
cordially that you secretly resolve to put a muzzle on your own
particular cannon cracker the next Fourth of July.
The shilling guide-books speak of London as the "gray old grandmother
of cities," meaning thereby to call attention to her upstart progeny
across the seas, but to my mind the title of grandmother is much more
applicable on account of the joyous surprises she has shut away in
dark closets.
One of the main pleasures of a visit to any grandmother is the gift of
treasure which she is likely to call forth mysteriously from some
tightly-closed cupboard and place in your hands for your own exclusive
possession--and certainly this old dingy city outgrannies granny when
it comes to that.
In the dingiest little book-stall imaginable, lighted by a candle and
tended by a ragged-cuffed gentleman with a passion for Keats, you may
find the very edition of something that college professors in your
native town are offering half a year's salary for! You buy it for five
dollars--which seems much more insignificant when spoken of by the
pound--then run out and hail the nearest cab, offering the chauffeur
an additional shilling to get you out of the neighborhood in ten
seconds! Your heart is thumping in guilty fear that the ragged-cuffed
gentleman with the passion for Keats may discover his mistake and run
after you to demand his treasure back!
You make a similar escape, a few hours later, with a Wedgwood
tea-caddy, whose delicate color the pottery has never been able to
duplicate--and with Sheffield plate your suit-case runneth over!
And your emotions while doing all this? Why, you've never before known
what "calm content" could mean.
In the first place, you never feel countrified and unpopular in
London, as you do in New York. Your clothes have a way of brightening
up and looking noticeably smart as if they'd just enjoyed a sojourn
at the dry cleaner's--and everybody you meet seems to care
particularly for Americans. You are at home there--not merely with the
at-home feeling which a good hotel and agreeable society give--but
there's a feeling of satisfaction much deeper than this. Something in
you, which has always known and loved England, is seeing familiar
faces again--the something which made you strain your eyes over
_Mother Goose_ by firelight years ago, and thrill over _Ivanhoe_ and
anything which held the name "Sherwood Forest" on its printed page.
It's something congenial--or prenatal--who knows?
(Oh yes! I answer very readily "Present!" when any one calls:
"Anglomaniac!")
It was only natural that I should let my adoration for Great Britain
show through in the copy I sent home to _The Oldburgh Herald_, and as
if to prove that honesty is the best policy, I received a letter of
praise from Captain Macauley.
"Anybody can run a foreign country down," he wrote, "but you've proved
that you're original by praising one! Stay there as long as you have
an English adjective left to go upon, then forget your sorrows, chase
away down to Italy and show us what you can do with 'bellissimo.'"
But I didn't do this, for the letter overtook me only after I had
reached Bannerley, and was seeing things which I could hope for no
words, either English or Italian, to describe.
I left London on Friday--which I ought to have had better sense than
to do, having been properly brought up by a black mammy--hoping to
reach the home of my shipboard friends early enough Saturday morning
to hear the pigeons coo under the eaves of Bannerley Hall. All my life
I had cherished an ambition to hear pigeons coo under eaves of an
ancestral place, and with this thought uppermost in my heart, I packed
my suit-case and drove to Paddington Station. I received my first
damper at the ticket window.
"Bannerley?" the agent repeated, looking at me with a shade of pity,
as I mentioned my destination. "Bannerley?"
"Certainly, Bannerley!" I insisted, with some effort toward a
dignified bearing, but the first glance at his doubtful face caused my
spirits to sink. Being by nature an extremist, they sank to the
bottom. All in a twinkling the cooing of pigeons in my mental picture
was changed to the croaking of ravens. "It's not so very difficult to
get to Bannerley, is it?"
He scratched his head.
"No-o--not in a general way, miss, but there ain't no telling _when_
you'll get there."
I drew back, more hurt than angry.
"But my friends have already warned me that I shall have to change at
Leamington--and Manchester--and Oldham--and----"
"Can't help that!" he exclaimed heartlessly, looking over my shoulder
at the line of waiting tourists. "Since the coal strike, trains on
them side-lines has been as scarce and irregular as a youngster's
teeth at shedding time."
I tried to smile politely, but another glance at his face showed me
that he wasn't expecting such an act of supererogation.
"Getting off into the unbeaten paths sounds pretty enough in a
guide-book," he kept on hastily, "but the first thing you do when you
meet an unbeaten path is to want to beat it!"
I faded out of the line and let my successor take my place.
"He's just an old grouch!" I told myself consolingly, as I got a seat
next a window. "Nothing really terrible can befall you when
traveling--if you've got a Masonic pin on your coat!"
(One of my Christie relations had thus decorated me and assured me.)
Then I forgot all about his gloomy warnings, for the train rumbled
across a thousand street crossings--then out into all the sheep
pastures in the civilized world, and--it was summer!
"This country _must_ be Kent!" I mused, not geographically, but
esthetically certain--as soft feathery green broke off occasionally
into a pollard-trimmed swamp--then came up again a little later into a
gentle, sheep-dotted rise. And I remembered the Duchess once more--"A
stalwart, fair-haired lover, and a dozen Kentish lanes!"
I have lived to learn that this is common to Americans who have been
brought up to understand that Kent is the garden-spot of England. No
matter at which point along the entire coastline they may board a
train, their first conviction upon seeing suburban scenery is that it
_must_ be Kent! (I say "suburban" advisedly, for none of it is far
enough away from the other to be rural.)
So my journey through an elongated and rather circuitous Kent kept my
mind away from the croakings of the ticket seller at Paddington--until
the next morning at daybreak, when I found myself put down with
mournful ceremony at a little wayside station which ought to have
been labeled "St. Helena."
"Just as sorry as you are, miss, but this is your nearest hope for a
train to Bannerley!" the guard said, by way of an appropriate
farewell, so off I got.
"But this place is surely named St. Helena," I groaned, as I looked
about me, yet the only actual similarity was in the matter of its
being entirely surrounded. The island entirely surrounded by water, of
course--this station entirely surrounded by land. I believe that I had
never before in my life seen such a stretch of unimproved property!
"'The woods and I--and their infinite call,'" I quoted, as I looked
out somewhat shamefacedly across the acres. For it was exactly the
kind of place I had always longed to possess for my very own--yet here
I had arrived at it, and might, for all I knew to the contrary, take
possession of it by right of discovery--yet I was feeling lonely and
resentful at the very start.
Then I remembered Robinson Crusoe and took heart, straining my eyes in
hope of a sail, but nowhere was there a human face to be seen, nor
sign of life. Not even a freight car stood drearily on a
side-track--and, as you know, you have to be very far away from the
center of things not to find a freight car! None was here, however,
for there wasn't a side-track for it to stand upon--the main line
running in two shining threads far away toward Ireland.
The only moving bodies visible were a paper sack being blown gently
down the track, a blue fly buzzing around a blackened banana peeling
and a rook cawing overhead. I looked up at the rook and smiled
philosophically.
"I anticipated a 'coo,' then apprehended a 'croak'--what I get is a
happy compromise, a 'caw,'" I said, and I find that things usually
turn out this way in the great journey of life. Nothing is ever so
good, nor so bad, as you think it's going to be when you're standing
at the ticket window. The great anticipator is also a great
apprehender--therefore realization is bound to be a relief.
Then, as if in reward of my optimism, I began to scent the odor of
escaping coffee.
"It _is_ inhabited!" I cried.
Springing up, I darted around to the other side of the station, and
there, in a clump of trees, lying snug and humane-looking in the
morning light, was a tiny cottage. I waited, and presently there
issued from the doorway a man--wiping his mouth reminiscently.
He espied me at once and came up, cap in hand.
"Was you wanting something, miss?" he asked.
"A train," I replied, trying to sound inconsequential with the
lordliness that comes of intense disgust. "I have a ticket to
Bannerley--and I have friends there _waiting_!"
The man dared to smile.
"Since the coal strike that's mostly what folks does, miss," he
explained.
There was a moment of strained silence, which was broken by the
appearance of a young boy--an eerie creature who had seemed to glide
straight out of the eastern horizon on a bicycle. The station-master
turned to him.
"Take this here parcel up to Lord Erskine--and be quicker than you was
yesterday!" he said.
The boy's face and mine changed simultaneously, his brightening, mine
paling.
"Lord Erskine!" I cried, a little ghostly feeling of fear stealing
over me--for my American instincts failed to grasp the rapidity with
which dead men's shoes can be snatched off and fitted with new rubber
heels in England--"Lord Erskine is dead."
The little messenger boy looked at me pityingly.
"'E _wuz_," he explained, "but 'e ain't now!"
"And--and do you mean to tell me that this is the station for Colmere
Abbey?" I demanded, turning again to the man.
"Yes, miss."
He tried hard not to look supercilious, but there, six feet above my
head, was the name "Colmere" in faded yellow letters against the
black background of the sign-board. And I had always believed in
psychic warnings!
"I--I hadn't thought to look at the sign-board," I endeavored to
explain. "It seems that it doesn't matter what your station is, for
you're as far away from your destination at one place as at
another--during the coal strike! You think I can't get a train to
Bannerley until----"
"Perhaps to-night--perhaps not until to-morrow morning," he answered
with cruel frankness, and I knew from heresay that trains did
occasionally wander, comet-fashion, out of their orbit, and come
through stations at unexpected moments. "Still, there's a railroad
hotel about a mile down the track."
"A railroad hotel?"
"Where the men get their meals--the guards and porters!"
My spirits sank.
"That old kill-joy at Paddington knew what he was talking about!" I
said to myself--then aloud: "But, couldn't I get a carriage, or
a----"
He shook his head.
"We mostly uses bicycles around here--when we don't walk," he
explained.
"But I must get to Bannerley!" I burst out in desperation. "And I am a
first-rate walker! How far is it?"
I was beginning to realize that the adventure might make good copy,
headed: "Wonderful Pedestrian Journey through Historic Lancashire."
Many a slighter incident has called forth heavier head-lines.
"Walk?"
"Certainly--then take up the matter with the railroad company in
Glasgow, just before I sail for home!"
My terrible manner caused him to look me over, quickly.
"Was you wanting to get to the village--or the hall?" he asked,
evidently impressed by my severity, and my heart softened.
"To the hall," I answered. "Mrs. Montgomery is expecting me."
He tried hard not to show that he was impressed, but he failed.
Evidently Mrs. Montgomery was a great personage, and I took on a tinge
of reflected glory not to be entirely ignored.
"The hall is a mile from the village--and the village is three miles
from here," he explained gently. "Of course, there's short cuts, if a
body knows 'em--but for a lady like you----"
The click of the telegraph instrument clamored for his attention, so
he reluctantly left me. I remained outside, listening to the caw of
the rook. Presently he came out again.
"There will be a train through here pretty soon--but it's coming from
the direction of Bannerley instead of going toward there--still----"
"Still, it will give us occasion to hope for better things later on,"
I answered cheerfully. "And it has occurred to me that I might while
away a portion of the morning by walking up to the gates of Colmere
Abbey. That boy went in this direction, didn't he?"
"Not a quarter of a mile, miss--down in this direction," he assured
me. "Just follow this road, and you'll find the lodge in a clump of
trees."
The "May" hedges were glistening with the early sunbeams, and as I
walked down the railroad track the distance seemed quite a good deal
short of the quarter of a mile mentioned. I found the clump of trees
indicated--then a small gray building. My heart bounded, and I rubbed
my eyes to make sure that I was awake.
"Is this the entrance to Colmere Abbey?" I asked of the boy on the
bicycle, who was turning out of the gate at that moment.
"This is one of the lodges--but not the grand one, madam!" he answered
anxiously.
"Oh, indeed? But one can get to the park through this gate?" I
persisted.
"Oh, yes, madam."
He showed an inclination to act as my esquire, but I got rid of him by
promising him sixpence if he would take care of my bag until I
returned to the station--then I crossed the greasy railroad track and
entered the shade of the trees. It was far from being my ideal entrée
into the old house of my heart's desire, but it was something of an
adventure--until I reached the gates. There I was halted.
"Yes, miss--if you please?"
It was an acid voice, and I looked at the doorway of the house, out of
which an old woman was issuing. She was garbed in profound black.
"I want to get in--to see the grounds of the abbey," I explained
casually, but she was not to be overwhelmed by any airy nonchalance.
She shook her head.
"But that can't be!"
The smile which accompanied this information was almost gleeful.
"No? But why not?"
She looked at me pityingly.
"Didn't you know we was in mourning?" she demanded, bristling with
importance.
I instantly made a penitent face, then glanced appreciatively at her
gown, but she gave no evidence of being a physiognomist. She failed
to take note of my contrite expression.
"You can't go sight-seeing in here!" she said.
"Not even a little way?"
I accompanied this plea by the display of a shining half-crown, which
I carried in my glove for emergency. That's one good thing about being
away from the United States--you don't have to regard money so
tenderly. You realize that shillings and francs and lire were made to
spend for souvenirs and service, but dollars--ugh! They were made to
put in the bank! So I twinkled this ever-ready half-crown temptingly
in the morning light, but she shook her head again.
"While we was in mourning?" she demanded, with a gasp of outraged
propriety. "Why--_wha'ud the minister say?_"
At this I turned away sadly--for I had been in England long enough to
know there's never any use trying to surmise _what_ the minister 'ud
say!
"Just the same, you'd make a dandy old servant--and I'm a great mind
to buy you and put you in my suit-case, along with the Sheffield
candlesticks," I thought, as I made my way back to the station.
During my absence a train had come clattering in--and it stood
stock-still now, while the engineer and the station-master held a long
conversation over a basket of homing pigeons which had been deposited
upon the platform. I viewed the locomotive listlessly enough--the walk
having taken some of my former impatient energy away, but my interest
was aroused as I came upon the platform by the appearance of a servant
in livery, disentangling from one of the compartments a suit-case and
leather hat-box.
The man's back was toward me, as he struggled to lift his burden high
above the precious basket of pigeons which was usurping place and
attention, but the look of the traveling paraphernalia held my eye for
a moment.
"Could it belong to an American?" I mused.
The servant deposited the cases on the platform, then turned, still
with his back toward me, and took part in the lively pigeon argument.
I looked at the beautiful smoothness of the leather.
"Of course they're American!" I decided, for you must know that nearly
any Englishman's luggage would compare unfavorably with the bags Aunt
Jemima brings with her when she comes up to the city for a week's
mortification to her nephews.
"Never judge an Englishman by the luggage he lugs!" is only a fair act
of discretion.
I crossed the platform, partly to get away from the mournful sounds
emanating from the wicker basket, and then, at the door of the little
station I was arrested by another sound. It was a sound which had
certainly not been there when I had left, half an hour before! I
halted--wondering if there really could be anything in psychic
warnings!
Inside the dingy little room some one was whistling! The melody was
falling upon the air with a certain softness which, however, did not
conceal its suppressed vehemence--and the tune was _Caro Mio Ben!_
"Anybody has a right to whistle it!" I told myself savagely, but I
still hesitated--my heart standing still from the mere force of the
hypothesis. After a moment it began beating again, as if to make up
for lost time.
The whistling man inside left off his music--then I heard his
footsteps tramping impatiently across the bare wooden floor. He
finally came to the door and looked out. I glanced up, and our eyes
met! It _was Caro Mio Ben! It was Caro Mio Ben!_
"Well?" he said.
He stood perfectly still for half a minute it seemed--making no effort
toward a civilized greeting.
"Well!" I responded--as soon as I could.
"This is queer, isn't it?"
I looked at him.
"'Queer?'" I managed to repeat--that is, I heard the word escaping
past the tightening muscles of my throat. "_Queer!_"
"Most extraordinary!"
"I should--I think I should like to sit down!" I decided, as he
continued to stand staring at me, and I suddenly realized that I was
very tired.
He moved aside.
"By all means! Come in and sit down, Miss Christie. This station
fellow here tells me that you have been disappointed in your train."
"I have," I answered.
I might have added that I had been disappointed in everything most
important in life, as well--but his own face was wearing such an
expression of calm serenity that I was soothed as I looked at it.
"That's quite a problem here in England just now," he observed
politely.
"So I have been informed."
After this, conversation flagged, until the silence made me nervous.
"I should think we ought to be asking each other--questions!" I
suggested, trying to bring him to a realization of the necessary
formalities, but he only turned and looked down at me, with a slightly
amused, slightly superior smile.
"Questions?"
"About _ships_--and how long we intend staying--and what travelers
usually ask!" I said.
He shook his head, as if the subjects held little interest for him.
"Why should I ask that--when I happen to know?" he inquired.
"You know--what?"
"That you came over on the _Luxuria_."
"Yes?"
"And that _The Oldburgh Herald_ sent you--to write up the coal
strike."
"Yes--it did."
"And that you are going to stay--some time."
I was decidedly uncomfortable.
"Will you please explain how you knew all this?" I asked.
His smile died away.
"Mrs. Hiram Walker wrote her son to call on me while I was in New
York," he explained in his serious lawyer-like manner, "and he
happened to leave a copy of _The Oldburgh Herald_ in my rooms."
"Oh! That was quite simple, wasn't it?"
"Quite!"
It occurred to me then that there was no use trying to keep fate's
name out of this conversation--and also it came to me that the orchids
were no longer a mystery--but before I could make up my mind to
mention this he turned to me ferociously.
"You _did_ make a fool of me!" he accused.
My heart began thumping again.
"What do you mean?" I began, but he cut me short.
"It is this that I can not get over! The thought has come to me that
perhaps if I might hear you acknowledge it, I might be able to forgive
you better."
"Forgive me?"
He leaned toward me.
"If you don't mind, I should like to hear you say: 'Maitland Tait, I
did make a fool of you!'"
"But I didn't!" I denied stoutly, while my face flushed, and all the
fighting blood in me seemed to send forth a challenge from my cheeks.
"I'll say what I _do_ think, however, if you wish to hear it!"
"And that is----?"
"Maitland Tait, you made a fool of yourself!"
He looked disappointed.
"Oh, I know that!" he replied.
"You do? Since when, please?"
"Why, I knew it before I crossed the Ohio River!" he acknowledged,
seeming to take some pride in the fact. "I--I intended to
apologize--or something--when I got to Pittsburgh, but when I reached
New York, on my way here, I saw that you were coming to England,
too----"
"So you thought the matter could easily wait--I see!" I observed,
then, to change the subject, I asked: "Have you been here long?"
"Two weeks! I knew that I should get news of you in _this_
neighborhood, sooner or later."
I instantly smiled.
"I have come here for my first Sunday, you see, but----"
"But you haven't been to the abbey yet, have you?" he asked.
The boyish anxiety in his tone gave me a thrill. Something in the
thought of his remembering my romantic whim touched me.
"No. I have just come from there--the lodge--but the old woman at the
gates wouldn't let me in."
He looked interested.
"No? But why not?"
"The master of the house has just died," I explained. "It would be a
terrible breach of etiquette to go sight-seeing over the mourning
acres."
His lips closed firmly.
"Nonsense! I'll venture that's just a servant's whim." He slipped out
his watch. "Shall I go over and try to beg or bribe permission for
you? I'm not easily daunted by their refusals, and--I'll have a little
time to spare this morning, if you'd care to put your marooned period
to such a use."
"I _am_ marooned," I told him, wondering for a moment what the
Montgomerys would think of my delay, "and I should like this, of
course, above anything else that England has to offer, but----"
Then, after his precipitate fashion, he waited for no more. He paused
at the edge of the platform for a low-toned colloquy with Collins--I
could easily distinguish now that the liveried creature was
Collins--and the two disappeared down the car track. After the
briefest delay he returned.
"What can't be cured must be ignored," he said with a shrug, as he
came up. "The poor old devil evidently regards us as very impious
and--American, but I made everything all right with her."
"But how----?" I started to inquire, also at the same moment starting
down the track toward the lodge house, when he stopped both my
question and my progress.
"Let us wait here--I have sent Collins to get a car for us from the
garage not far away."
He led the way out to a drive, sheltered with trees, on the other side
of the track, and we awaited the coming of Collins--neither showing
any disposition to talk.
"Is this _your_ car?" I presently asked, as the servant driving a
gleaming black machine drew up in front of us. "I hadn't imagined that
you would have your own car down in the country with you."
"I've had experience with these trains," he explained briefly, then he
looked the car over with a masterful eye. "Yes, it's mine."
"I really shouldn't have needed to ask--there's so strong a family
resemblance to the other one--the limousine you had in Oldburgh."
He looked pleased.
"I hope you'll like this one--it's a Blanton Six, you see," he
explained with a pat of affectionate pride upon the door-handle as he
helped me in.
Collins climbed to his place at the wheel, and without another
word--without one backward look--I was whirled away into the Land of
Long Ago--the period where I had always belonged.
* * * * *
At the second lodge--the grand one--I pinched myself. I had to, to see
whether I was awake--or dreaming a Jane Austen dream. Maitland Tait,
watching me closely, saw the act.
"You're quite awake," he assured me gravely.
"But--what are you?" I inquired. "Are you yourself--or Aladdin,
or----"
I broke off abruptly, for the car was gliding over a bridge, and
underneath was a silvery, glinting ribbon, that might, in fairy-land,
pass for a river.
"Shall I stop the car and let you dabble the toe of your shoe in the
water?" my guide asked.
I looked at him in bewilderment.
"I shan't be able to believe it's just water--unless you do," I
explained. He had seen the look I let fall upon the shining breast of
the stream.
"And I'll send Collins away."
"Of course! It's sacrilegious to let any wooden-faced human look
upon--all this!"
The car obediently let us out, then steamed softly away, up the road
and out of sight.
Mr. Tait held out his hand to me and helped me down the steep little
river bank. I dabbled the toe of my shoe in the water, and as he
finally drew me away, with the suggestion of further delights, I
caught sight of a tiny fish, lying whitely upward in a tangle of
weeds.
"How _could_ he die?" I asked mournfully, as we walked away and
climbed back to the level of the park. "It seems so unappreciative."
The man beside me laughed.
"_Things_--even the most beautiful things on earth--don't keep
people--or fish alive," he said. "They can't even make people want to
stay alive--if this is all they have, and after all, the river is
just a thing--and the park is a thing--and the house is a thing!"
We had walked on rapidly, and at that moment the house itself became
apparent. I clutched his arm.
"A thing!" I denied, looking at it in a dazed fashion. "Why, it's the
House of a Hundred Dreams! It's all the dreams of April mornings--and
Christmas nights--and----"
"And what?" he asked gravely. But my eyes were still intoxicated.
"Why, it's Religion--and Art--and _Love_--and Comfort!"
He looked at it wonderingly, as if he expected to see statues
representing these chapters in the book of Life.
What he saw was a tangle of gravel walks, gray as the desert, drawing
away from grassy places and coming up sharply against the house.
_Such_ a house! A church--a tomb--a fluttering-curtained
living-hall--all stretched out in one long chain of battlemented
stone. Where the church began and the living-hall ended no one could
say, for there were trees everywhere.
"The lower part of the abbey is in good condition, it seems," my
conductor remarked, as we approached.
"Good condition!" I echoed. "Why, those doorways are as realistic
as--Sunday morning! I feel that I ought to have on a silk dress--and
hold the corners of my prayer-book with a handkerchief--to keep from
soiling my white gloves."
"If you listen perhaps you can hear the choir-boys," he said, after a
pause, and without smiling.
"But there might be a sermon, too!" I objected.
High above the doors was a great open space of a missing window; then,
over this, smaller spaces for smaller windows; and--in a niched
pinnacle--the Virgin.
"How can she--a woman in love--endure all this beauty?" I asked, my
voice hushed with awe.
"She's endured it for many centuries, it seems," he answered.
But we came closer then.
"Why, she hasn't even seen it--not once!" I cried, for I saw then that
she was not looking up, but down--at the burden in her arms.
Instinctively Maitland Tait bared his head as we crossed the
threshold.
"Shall we try to find a way through here into the gardens?" he asked.