Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/222

214 that I saw of him at Milly's wedding; I am glad to have the chance of knowing him better.

"I am so glad you have come," he says heartily; "we were afraid that"

A glance from Milly at the servants checks him, and he jumps into the carriage and we bowl away. I wonder if all married people behave as these do? There they sit face to face, hand locked in hand, gazing at each other with an absorbed spooniness that I do not know whether to smile at or admire. Well, I don't wonder at her loving him. In another minute we are at the house and in the hall. Through the half-opened drawing-room door comes a sound as of many tongues, a chinking as of many tea-cups; evidently all the world is there.

"I will go to my room, thank you," I say in answer to Milly's question. "Your maid will show me the way."

As I mount the wide staircase, shallow and wide enough to drive a coach and six down, I heave a deep sigh of relief. I am tired, hot, dusty; but oh! I am at my journey's end, and I am here, not at Silverbridge. My room is vast, and wide, and cool; it looks over garden and pleasaunce, hill and dale, fashioned after nature's rarest and most lovely pattern; and away to the left glitters my splendid old friend, the sea, upon whose face I have not looked for many a long day. I have removed my travelling dress and am drinking tea, when Alice comes in with a rush.

"How delighted I am to see you!" she says; and we fly towards each other and kiss heartily.

"You disgraceful young woman!" I say, holding her at arm's length; "so you have actually got another baby, have you!"

"Is it not shocking?" she says, laughing. "I have my hands full, I can tell you."

"And what is the last one like?" I ask with interest; "as pretty as the first was?"