“Well, he has got some pluck in him, Al,” said Sir Cheltnam, “even if he is a parson’s son.”
“Poor fellow! yes,” replied Alison.
“Moral,” said Sir Cheltnam laughingly, to the Lydon girls, “never give lumps of sugar to a skittish mare.”
Ten minutes later the little party were mounted and moved off, leaving Aunt Anne waving her lace handkerchief from the steps.
Chapter Two.
Nurse Elisia.
The roar of the big road sounded plainly, but it was far enough off for it to be subdued into a mellow hum, suggestive to the country sufferer lying in the narrow bed with its clean linen and neat blue checked hangings by the open window, of bees swarming, and a threshing machine at work in the farm beyond the park.
And yet it was London, for the windows were coated with a sooty layer outside, and the sun shone as if Nature were afraid its beams would be too strong for Londoners’ eyes, to which it came as in an eclipse through smoked glass, and a murky haze full of germs and motes was interposed between the dwellers in the city and the blue sky above.