Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/223

 They smiled at each other in the lower hall.

'Had I best take an umbrella?'

'Oh, no,' said Lanice, 'I want to get wet. Mrs. Paisley has assured me so many times that this cloth and these boots are impenetrable I want to put them to some test.—Oh, and you have on the vicar's raincoat?'

'Yes—and boots. The English certainly are most hospitable when they really get started. Actually these shoes are too small for me—but they have such a low opinion of American boots, I was really forced into them.'

'And his wife's are too large for me. Do we dare go back and get our own?'

'I dare, if you dare.'

'Agreed.'

They met again in the lower hall some five minutes later and again they smiled widely at each other. Lanice did not bother to draw the shawl over her head and the fog soon formed dewdrops on her bright hair. They found the rude stone canopy over the Fountain of Saint Cleer almost too easily.

'Let's try something harder,' suggested Sears Ripley.

'The Hurlers, for instance.'

'What are they?'

'Druid circles, far out on the moor. Dr. Paisley has often written about them in his sketches.'

'But is it safe to go so far out on the moor alone in a fog?'

'Not very,' he admitted, 'but we cannot possibly lose our way for long. Bodmin Moor is not so vast or