It was half-past four when they reached the little station, where guests for Ipping House left the train. Betty's heart beat with excitement and surprise as a splendid looking young fellow, tall and broad-shouldered, came forward to meet them.
"Bob!" "Mother!" "Dad!" came the quick, happy cries and then, after an awkward moment, the young American was presented to Betty.
"Bob, I want ye to know my new secretary, Miss Thompson," said Hiram, in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Miss Thompson!"
"Mr. Baxter!"
Their eyes met and that first quick scrutiny brought an impression, a swift sensation that neither ever forgot.
After seeing the ladies comfortably disposed in the tonneau, Hiram climbed into the front seat beside his son and the car, after a preliminary fit of monstrous ague, leaped forward with a dragon-like snort and swiftly rounded the grass-bordered flower-bed where the ambitious station master had spelled the name of Ippingford in sprawling and almost illegible nasturtiums.
A blur of whitish gray varied with deep green and momentary splashes of every possible rose color was all Betty saw of the village street. For a fraction of a second her eyes caught and held the fantastic image of a cat on a swinging sign—A Blue Cat—with golden feet, or were they golden boots? Before her mind had pieced the picture together the little tavern was left far behind. Now they were gliding swiftly and silently, save for the murmur of the motor, through a shimmering twilight of moss-grown beeches and ivy-covered oaks, where high hawthorn hedges shadowed miniature jungles of interlacing leaves and ferns and nestling flowers. Like a blue-green tapestry it shut them in on either side. Only as the car slowed for an instant when rounding a corner could one make out a detail of harebell, foxglove, wild rose, or honeysuckle. It was Betty's first sight of a rambling English lane, and her mind flew back to the stolid French country roads lined with staid, orderly poplars.
"This is mad, quite mad, by comparison," she said to herself, "but exquisitely mad like Ophelia." Then aloud to Mrs. Baxter, as she leaned back: "How cozy they are, these English lanes!"
Now they were speeding down a narrow green alley, where the hawthorn hedges met overhead and the sound was as if they were going through a tunnel. Mrs. Baxter did not hear, but she nodded and smiled to save Betty from the necessity of shouting.