"I am glad you are not bored. By the way, if you should by any chance see Hezekiah, you will kindly intimate to her that if she returns that Estabrook mare she borrowed this morning in reasonably good condition, I will overlook her indiscretion in taking it from the stable without permission."
She did not wait for a reply, but continued on to her room, and I went direct to the terrace. Cecilia and Pepperton were just going into the house to look up a book or piece of music which they had been discussing. Cecilia was making herself interesting, as she so well knew how to do, and she seemed in no wise anxious.
"We had forgotten tea," she said. "Aunt Octavia has just ordered it."
"She and Mr. Pepperton may have their tea. I believe the air outside will do you good for a little longer,—so if you don't mind, Pepperton, Miss Hollister will resume her promenade alone."
Pep has told me since that he thought me quite mad that afternoon. I bade Cecilia patrol the long terrace slowly. She turned up the collar of the covert coat and obeyed, laughing a little nervously but asking no questions. The scene could not have been more charmingly set. The great house loomed darkly behind her; beneath lay the garden, over which the dusk was stealing goldenly.
She paused suddenly as I watched from the window, and I stepped out to see what had attracted her attention. There into the garden from its farther entrance filed the six suitors who had previously come to sit beneath the windows of their stricken lady! Having failed to visit their wrath upon the perfidious Dick they had changed their clothes and returned to Hopefield. If Hezekiah had not expressly commanded me not to become the sixth man, I should have offered myself on the spot, and waited only until Cecilia had made the inevitable answer before summoning Wiggins to end the whole affair. Such, however, was not to be the order of events.
The procession, headed by Ormsby, was within a few yards of the terrace. Cecilia, apparently unconscious of their proximity, continued her promenade. In a moment she must recognize them, ask them into the house, give them tea, and otherwise destroy my hope of securing her happiness before the day's end.
A chorus of yelps and barks, as of dogs suddenly released, greeted my ear. The oncoming suitors heard it too, and the line wobbled uncertainly. Then round the house swept mastiffs, hounds, terriers,—a collection of prize-winners such as few kennels ever boasted, loping gayly in unwonted freedom toward unknown and forbidden pastures.
The vanguard of fox-terriers leaped down into the garden, with the rest of the pack at their heels. Happy dogs, to find grown men ready for a gambol! Six coat-tails streamed from the hips of six gentlemen in a hurry. Several battered hats mixed with geraniums were retained later as spoils of war by the gardener. That garden had been built for repose and contemplative amblings, not for panic and flight. The disorder was superior in picturesqueness to that which attended the pumpkin stampede; at least it struck me at the moment as funnier; and I have never since been able to attend a day wedding without appearing idiotic—the procession of ushers suggests possibilities that are too much for me. Four of the suitors found one of the proper exits into the road; two leaped the box-hedge on the other side without shaking a leaf.
I ran round the house, stumbling through the rear-guard of the truant canines, and passing the kennel-master, who had rallied the stable men and was in hot pursuit.