"This is your house?"
"Yes, this is Greenriver." He helped her out of the car. "And here is my old friend Mrs. Blades coming to meet us."
An elderly, rather prim-looking woman came forward as Owen advanced, and in her eyes shone a welcoming light.
"Come in, sir. We were beginning to wonder if you were coming to-day."
"Yes—started rather late." Owen gave her hand a friendly shake. "But we shan't have to go back just yet. I want to have a chat with you by and bye, Mrs. Blades. This young lady, Miss Gibbs, has kindly come down to help me with some work."
"I'm sure the young lady is very welcome," was Mrs. Blades' old-fashioned reply. "Shan't I make you a cup o' tea, sir, first of all?"
"Well, a cup of tea would be nice ... but I think, if Miss Gibbs isn't tired, we'll get on with our work first, and then we'll enjoy it better. Eh, Miss Gibbs?"
Miss Gibbs agreed; and five minutes later she was installed, with her typewriter, in the library. Owen busied himself, for a few moments, at the shelves, searching for the books he wanted; and Toni spent the time in gazing round her, wonder, admiration and awe mingling in her gaze.
The room was large and lofty and the big mullioned windows looked out upon a beautiful terrace, bordered with wallflowers, jonquils, and masses of dancing daffodils. The grass, smooth as velvet, led to a stone balustrade, beyond which lay the river, sparkling in the sunshine, whilst beyond that again were green fields, broken here and there by clumps of majestic trees, the fields in their turn leading to a range of distant, misty, blue hills.
The room itself was second only in interest to the view. In all her life Toni had never entered such a room—had never imagined, indeed, that private houses boasted such apartments.