Will Harcourt might be expected some time to-day. If there had been no delay in the mail, if her letter had reached him on time, and if he had acted promptly on it, and started on the journey to Goblin Hall, he might reach Goeberlin by the eleven o’clock train.
When Ceres came in with the breakfast tray Roma said:
“I wish you to send Pontius to me.”
A few minutes later, while the lady and the child were seated at breakfast, the man came in.
“I wish you to go with the carriage to meet the eleven o’clock train at Goeberlin. I expect a visitor,” she said.
“An’ ef de wisitor doane come by dat train, mus’ I wait fo’ de fo’ train?” inquired the man.
“No, you must come back; and in that case I will send Puck to meet the four,” said Roma, who knew one weakness of her factotum, and did not wish to expose him to temptation by allowing him to remain in reach of strong drink for five idle hours in the village.
That morning Roma could settle herself to nothing. So she gave herself up to the pleasure of the child, and walked with her through the old-fashioned garden, with its affluence of rose bushes, shrubs, vines, and flowers of every description, though only the earliest were now in bloom, with its many sorts of sweet herbs and its many small fruits, the whole garden fenced in by a thick hedge of raspberry bushes, now in full blossom.
Owlet looked at them with amazed delight, turning her enchanted eyes from the white blooming hedge of raspberry bushes to the white blossoming bed of strawberry vines, and murmuring softly to herself:
“Oh, what glory! what glory! what glory!”