Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/299

 his last backward glance found the quiet of the picture unbroken; again it was a page from the Greenaway book.

He reached the terrace; laughter and applause from the piazza caught his ear. Fresh from the atmosphere he had left, he stared in amazement at the scene before him.

Swift figures were scudding from one to another of the four great elms that marked out a natural rectangle on the smooth side lawn.

“Puss! puss! Here, puss!” a high voice called, and a tall slender girl in a swish of lace and pink draperies rushed across one side of the square. A portly trousered figure essayed to gain the tree she had left, but a romping girl in white caught him easily, while Mrs. Dud, the tail of her gown thrown over her arm, skimmed triumphantly across to her partner’s tree.

“One more, one more, colonel. You can’t give up, now you’re caught! One