Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/178

172 groaned. "I'd be glad of any woman, any girl, even Cousin Eleanor."

He had opened a window, for the place was hot and close and through this he could hear, of a sudden, the sound of an automobile coming up the drive. He dashed through the dark passage, hurried to the great front door, and flung it open. There was a crunching of big wheels on the gravel and the snorting of an engine checked suddenly to a stop. It was not Mrs. Brown and Janet, for, though he heard voices, they were not theirs. The car had stopped beyond the fallen tree and some one was coming across the grass—two people, for the voices were a man's and a girl's. Apparently Cousin Tom had not stopped to finish his dinner, after all, and he had brought Cousin Eleanor.

"Yes, I'll be glad to see even her," he thought desperately.

The two came nearer, a man in white flannels, but bareheaded in the hurry of his coming, and a girl in white also. There was something familiar in the swing of those broad shoulders, in the tone of that voice. Yet Oliver stood, blinking stupidly, holding to the side of the door, too dazed to speak when the two stepped out of the dark and came up the steps—the Beeman and Polly.