And he bent his face to hers, and the plan was sealed, and the stream and the trees and meadows were the witnesses thereof.
They sat there, it may have been for a few hundred years, or half an hour or so, and then by a common consent rose. Whether they walked back to Wroxton or not they scarcely knew; it may have been that the surface of the earth was fitted for them on a circular tape, which slid away beneath their feet, and stopped revolving only when they reached the garden door at Bolton Street. There certainly it stopped, for Jack said:
“We will tell them, will we not, Jeannie?”
“Aunt Em knows,” she said. “She guessed, or I told her, I don’t know which, the evening after we sat in the garden. But we will tell Arthur.”
“And baby?” suggested Jack.
Jeannie’s face suddenly grew grave.
“Oh, what a little pig I am!” she said. “How is baby? I had forgotten.”
“As fat as—as a baby,” said Jack, at loss for a simile.
Aunt Em was in the garden, with a pair of thick gloves on and a spade in her hand. She called it gardening, and was alone in this opinion. She was standing with her back to them as they entered, and seemed to be employed in spearing the young and tender chrysanthemums. She was so absorbed in her destructive pursuit that she did not hear their steps till they were close to her, and she looked up with a snap.
“You, Jeannie,” she said, at length, “and you, Jack.”