She opened her eyes at me, while Peggy and Vic stood by in amazement that this chic magpie apparition should be known to me.
I hadn't been mistaken, even though I could not imagine what should bring her here of all places in the world. It was she all right.
It was Muriel Elvey, the girl who had taken Harry from me!
Muriel opened her big eyes even more widely upon me.
"Good gracious! Is it? Yes, it's Joan Matthews! How priceless!" she exclaimed in that pretty drawl of hers. She glanced from me to the other two Land Girls and back again. "Of course! How d'you do?"
Here she extended her small, perfectly-gloved hand towards my sunburnt paw, that I saw for the first time was irremediably roughened by farm work.
I saw that Miss Muriel took in this and every other detail of my appearance, while she went on gaily:
"Isn't this too funny? The last person I'd ever dreamt of seeing! Of course, I'd heard you'd gone on the land, Joan, or something quaint like that——"
"Why 'quaint'?" thought I, while the same thought showed on the faces of my two mates.
"But I didn't know at all which bit of 'the land' it was supposed to be," concluded Muriel. "Isn't it appallingly hard work? Can you stand it? It would kill me," she went on. She always could chatter nineteen to anybody else's dozen. "I get fearfully done up, with my own war work."