She moves from him.
"Then thank you, and I shall go with you, if you will allow me," says Geoffrey, hurriedly, as he sees her disappearing.
"Tell your boy to go to the kitchen," says Mona, thoughtfully, and, Paddy being disposed of, she and Geoffrey go on to the house.
They walk up a little gravelled path, on either side of which trim beds of flowers are cut, bordered with stiff box. All sorts of pretty, sweetly-smelling old wild blossoms are blooming in them, as gayly as though they have forgotten the fact that autumn is rejoicing in all its matured beauty. Crimson and white and purple asters stand calmly gazing towards the sky; here a flaming fuchsia droops its head, and there, apart from all the rest, smiles an enchanting rose.
"That like a virgin queen salutes the sun
Dew-diadem'd."
Behind the house rises a thick wood,—a "solemn wood," such as Dickens loved to write of, with its lights and shades and every-varying tints. A gentle wind is rushing through it now; the faint murmur of some "hidden brook," singing its "quiet tune," fall upon the ear; some happy birds are warbling in the thickets. It is a day whose beauty may be felt.
"I have no card but my name is Geoffrey Rodney," says the young man, turning to his companion.
"And mine is Mona Scully," returns she, with the smile that seems part of her lips, and which already has engraven itself on Mr. Rodney's heart. "Now, I suppose, we know each other."
They walk up two steps, and enter a small hall, and then he follows her into a room opening off it, in which breakfast lies prepared.
It is in Geoffrey's eyes a very curious room, unlike anything he has ever seen before; yet it possesses for him (perhaps for that very reason) a certain charm. It is uncarpeted, but the boards are white as snow, and on them lies a fine sprinkling of dry sand. In one of the windows—whose panes are diamond-shaped—two geraniums are in full flower; upon the deep seat belonging to the other lie some books and a stocking half knitted.