“We shall all miss you,” averred Elisabeth, and there was absolute sincerity in her tones. “I don't see why you need be in such a hurry to run away from us.” And Geoffrey and Tim chorused approval.
Sara beamed upon them all with humid eyes.
“It's dear of you to want me to stay with you,” she declared. “But, don't you see, I must live my own life—have a roof-tree of my own? I can't just sit down comfortably in the shade of yours.”
“Pushful young woman!” chaffed Geoffrey. “Well, I can see your mind is made up. So what are your plans? Let's hear them.”
“I thought of taking rooms for a while with some really nice people—gentlefolk who wanted to take a paying guest—”
“Poor but honest, in fact,” supplemented Geoffrey.
Sara nodded.
“Yes. You see”—smiling—“you people have spoiled me for living alone, and as I'm really rather a solitary individual, I must find a little niche for myself somewhere.” She unfolded a letter she was holding. “I thought I should like to go near the sea—to some quite tiny country place at the back of beyond. And I think I've found just the thing. I saw an advertisement for a paying guest—of the female persuasion—so I replied to it, and I've just had an answer to my letter. It's from a doctor man—a Dr. Selwyn, at Monkshaven—who has an invalid wife and one daughter, and he writes such an original kind of epistle that I'm sure I should like him.”
Geoffrey held out his hand for the letter, running his eyes down its contents, while his wife, receiving an assenting nod from Sara in response to her “May I?” looked over his shoulder.
Only Tim appeared to take no interest in the matter, but remained standing rather aloof, staring out of the window, his back to the trio grouped around the hearth.