“Tivett,” said Vansittart, when the carriages had driven off, “I am going to make a martyr of you. It will be three o’clock at the earliest when we get back to Redwold, and I know you enjoy your luncheon. It’s really too bad.”
“Do you think I regret the sacrifice in the cause of friendship? There go the Marchant girls, steaming on ahead. We had better overhaul them at once. Don’t mind me, Vansittart. I have been doing gooseberry ever since I wore Eton jackets. Only one word—Is it serious?”
“Very serious—sink or swim—Heaven or Hades.”
“And all in honour?”
“All in honour.”
“Then I am with you to the death. You want a long walk and a long talk with Miss Marchant; and you want me to take the whole bunch of sisters off your hands.”
“Just so, my best of friends.”
“Consider it done.”
They overtook the young ladies in the dip of the road, where a lane branches off to Bexley Hill. Here they stopped to shake hands all round, and to talk of the church, and the weather—quite the most exquisite Easter Sunday that any of them could remember, or could remember that they remembered, for no doubt memory severely interrogated would have recalled Easter Days as fair.
“Mr. Tivett and I are pining for a long walk,” said Vansittart, “so we are going to see you home—if you will let us—or, if you are not tied for time, will you join us in a ramble on Bexley Hill? It is just the day for the hill—the views will be splendid—and I know that you young ladies are like Atalanta. Distance cannot tire you!”