'I mean to take you home as usual, Trixy.'
'Pray don't,' said Maud icily. 'It's only a step.'
A peal of laughter from Trixy greeted her speech.
'Maud,' she cried, 'you are too funny for anything. You will freeze us up to nothing. I feel the process beginning. Don't you, Tom?'
'Trixy, you wild little creature, do you mean to stay all night?' said Lady Elton, who was waiting hooded and cloaked in the verandah.
'No, mother, here I am,' said Trixy, 'and Maud is following me. Maud can't walk very quickly, you know. Good-night, dearest, sweetest Mrs. Gregory. Tom——'
'Tom will go with you, of course,' said Mrs. Gregory. 'Good-night, dears. Come and see me again soon. Yes, the night air is a little chilly, so I will shut the door. You may say good-night to me too, Tom. I am tired, and I think I shall go to my room at once.'
The door of the cottage shut, and all but Mrs. Gregory went out into the throbbing silence of the summer night. Its enchantment made even wild little Trixy quiet for a few moments. As she looked up and saw the little moon, half entangled in a web of rainbow-tinted clouds, floating like a spirit in the dark spaces of the starlit sky, she said in a stifled whisper that she didn't in the least wonder that looking at the moon made people feel sentimental. In the next instant, however, sentiment was put to flight.
A cheerful, sonorous voice, which they all knew, came ringing across the lawn, while from under the shadows of the witch-elms a little band of figures appeared. The General, and Grace, and Lucy, and Mildred had come out in search of them.
'Good evening, Tom; good evening, everybody,' said the General. 'We began to think you meant to keep my lady altogether, so we came out in a body to fetch her back.'