Miss Lyndesay was turning away to avoid them, when a deep “Ach, so!” followed by a feminine “Wunderhübsch! Ganz malerisch!” fell on her ear. She looked more closely at the little group. A gentleman in a long linen duster, with a loosely rolled umbrella under his arm, was gazing at the church most earnestly. He stepped back to get a better view, and colliding with a mossy headstone, turned and bowed to it politely with an apology. The little woman at his side paid no attention to him or to the guide, but followed with her eyes a plump young girl in a sailor-suit, who was stooping to gather flowers.
“Frieda,” she called, “pluck not those blossoms!”
Miss Lyndesay approached the young girl. Mona Lisa’s inscrutable eyes and elusive smile looked up from below an impossible hat.
“I was looking for you, Frieda,” said Miss Lyndesay. “But Hannah said you were in Ryde.”
“Yesterday, gracious lady,” said Frieda, ducking in a courtesy, “but to-day, no. We have sought you, too, and vainly. Vater, Mütterchen, behold Hannah’s beloved lady. We have found ourselves at last!”
109CHAPTER NINE
LANDING
“O Dear! It seems as though I couldn’t wait a minute longer. It takes such an eternity for them to get in. Do you think you can see her, Karl? Take the glasses and look. See if you don’t think that little red speck in the bow is her?”
“After the verb ‘to be’–”
“O, bother, Karl! You are fussier about my English than my German.”