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28 Lucia, meantime, managed to find the famous tennis-balls, which, as a matter of fact, were rather past their prime, and went out with Aunt Catherine to play lawn-tennis. The afternoon was broiling hot, for summer, long delayed, had come with a vengeance, and the high brick walls at the sides of the garden and the house at one end, and the railway embankment at the other, effectually prevented any breath of wind reaching the players. But the whitewash lines of the court were still faintly visible, and there were not many holes at the top of the net, so that a game was easily practicable. Aunt Cathie had put on a sun-bonnet decorated with a large black bow, and on her feet she wore that species of covering known as sand-shoes—black canvas, with shiny toes, such as she wore on the beach at Sea View—and accustomed though Lucia was to the truculence of her aspect, it struck her anew, as, cool and fresh herself, she stepped out into the blinding sunshine and found her aunt waiting for her.

The net first required adjustment, and on Aunt Cathie's winding up the winch with too zealous a hand, the wire broke, and the net collapsed. A temporary repair was soon executed, and Aunt Cathie began to serve the slack, discoloured balls. The first two or three, being out of practice, she threw high in the air, but failed to hit altogether, and then, by a fortuitous conjunction of circumstances, she struck one so violently that it pitched among the cabbages, and had to be instantly recovered before they forgot where it had gone to. Then Aunt Cathie scored several faults of different descriptions; one hit the ground at her feet, one went into the net, a third knocked off the head of one of the few geraniums and spilled its scarlet petals as by a deed of blood. But after this, having got her hand in, she served several to the required place, and Lucia returned them as gently as she knew how. But Aunt Cathie's bolt, so to speak, was shot when she had delivered a correct service, and she was incapable of more, though with extraordinary gallantry she rushed swiftly and erratically to the places where Lucia's returns had been only a second or two before. And rarely—so rarely—did she ever send a ball into her opponent's court.

Slowly, as this parody of a game continued, Lucia's forehead gathered itself into little puckers, and the corners of her mouth got rather firm and hard, for neither her sense of humour nor, which was much worse, did any sense of compassion or tenderness come to her aid. She only knew that it was all most tiresome and ridiculous. Humour might possibly have left her