Walter Gray came, in a flutter of tender anxiety, at half-past six in the evening, to Lady Anne's garden, where Mary was sitting in her wicker chair under the mulberry tree. Lady Anne had given orders that he was to be shown out to the garden when he called.
"My poor little girl!" he said, with an arm about Mary's shoulder.
Then he took off his hat to Lady Anne. There was respect in his manner, but nothing over-humble, nothing to say that they were not equals in a sense. His eyes, at once bright and dreamy, rested on her with a friendly regard.
"The man has gentle blood in him somewhere," said the old lady to herself. She had a sense of humour which kept her knowledge of her own importance from becoming overweening. "I believe his respect is for my age, not for my rank. I wonder what the world is coming to!"
She went away then and left the father and daughter together. Walter, who had taken a chair by Mary's, looked with a half-conscious pleasure round the velvet sward on which the shadows of the trees lay long. The trees were at their full summer foliage, dark as night, mysterious, magnificent.
"What a very pleasant place!" Walter Gray said, with grave enjoyment. "How sweet the evening smells are! How quiet everything is! Who could believe that Wistaria Terrace was over the wall?"
"I have been missing Wistaria Terrace," Mary said. "You don't know how lonesome it feels for the children. I wonder how Mamie is getting on without me. I want to go home. Indeed, I feel quite able to. I don't know how I shall do without going home."
"If you went home," said Walter Gray, unexpectedly practical, "your arm would never set, Mary. You'd be forgetting and doing all manner of things you oughtn't to do. If Lady Anne is kind enough to ask you to visit her, stay a while and rest, dear. Indeed, you do too much for your size."
"You will all miss me so dreadfully."
"Indeed, I don't think we shall miss you—in that way. Oddly enough—I suppose Matilda was on her mettle—the house seemed quieter when I came home. The children were in bed. I smelt something good from the kitchen. Don't imagine that we shall not be able to do without you, child."