"And Michael and Potch are in the kitchen wanting to have a look at you before you go, Sophie," Maggie Grant said.
"Oh!" Sophie took the coat Mrs. Woods was lending her, and went out to the kitchen with it on her arm.
Michael and Potch were there. They stared at her. But her radiant face, the shining eyes, and the little smile which hovered on her mouth, held their gaze more than the new white dress standing out in slight, stiff folds all round her. The vision of her—incomparable youth and loveliness she was to Michael—gripped him so that a moisture of love and reverence dimmed his eyes.... And Potch just stared and stared at her.
Paul was bawling from the buggy outside:
"Are you ready, Sophie? Sophie, are you ready?"
Mrs. Woods held the dust-coat. Very carefully Sophie edged herself into it, and wrapped its nondescript buff-coloured folds over her dress. Then she put the pink woollen scarf Martha had brought over her head, and went out to the buggy. Her father was sitting aloft on the front seat, driving Sam Nancarrow's old roan mare, and looking spruce and well turned out in a new baggy suit which Michael had arranged for him to get in order to look more of a credit to Sophie at the ball.
"See you take good care of her, Paul," Mrs. Grant called after him as they drove off.
CHAPTER XV
The drive across the plains seemed interminable to Sophie.