They had been sitting in silence for some time, both thinking, I suppose, when Lotty's keen ear caught the weary call of some benighted plover.
'They'll soon be away now!' she sighed, more to herself than to her companion.
'What will soon be away, Lotty?'
'Oh, the plovers and the swallows and the greenfinches, and nearly all my pretty pets of springtime, and we'll have only just the rooks and the gulls left.'
Antony laid his hand on hers.
'Lotty loves the wild birds, then?'
'I—I suppose so. Doesn't everybody? I wish I could go south with the birds in autumn, to lands where the flowers are always blooming.'
'Who knows what is before you, child!'
The child interested him.
'Look, Lotty, look!' cried Antony next moment; 'what on earth can that be?'