Preparations for Mrs Thornton’s garden-party went on uninterruptedly during the next week, and grew in fervour as the great day approached. Everybody had accepted, as the hostess announced with a groan and a laugh; and the vicar threatened to be called abroad on urgent business, so alarmed was he at the prospect of the fashionable throng which was to invade his shabby precincts. When, however, Mrs Thornton made up her mind to carry out a plan, she was not easily damped; and aided by Mollie and the younger members of her brood, she weeded, and forked, and clipped at the over-grown garden, until it really began to assume quite a presentable appearance.
“I daren’t weed,” Mollie explained, “for I’m a poor town thing, who would probably pull up your most cherished seedlings; but my arms are so strong that I can mow with the best, so I’ll take the grass in hand, if someone else will trim the borders.”
“But your face, my dear—your face!” cried Mrs Thornton, staring with dismay at the crimsoned countenance beneath the straw hat. “I’m ashamed to let you work so hard! What would your uncle say if he saw you now?”
“Something uncomplimentary, no doubt. I know I am magenta, but fortunately it isn’t lasting. I asked Mr Druce if he would help me this morning, and do a little rolling into the bargain, but he would not give up his ride.”
Mrs Thornton pursed up her lips, stared first at the ground, then at the sky, then across into Mollie’s face.
“He is very fond of riding!” she said mysteriously. “I see him pass every morning, going in the same direction, and always alone. How is it that none of you ever go with him?”
“Jack Melland is still lame, and Ruth and I are only beginners. We have little canters together in the afternoons sometimes, but in the mornings he prefers to be free to go longer distances. He goes ever so far—miles and miles. One morning last week he met Lady Margot Blount somewhere near the Moat.”
“And one morning this week also, for my husband saw them together, and if I were inclined to gossip, I should say it was oftener than once. My dear Mollie, how charming! Are we going to have a love-story to enliven the summer? Nobody ever gets engaged or married in this sleepy place, and this would be truly exciting! But I thought at one time—excuse my saying so, won’t you, dear?—I quite thought he admired your sister, and that there might be a match there!”
“Of course, he admired her—no one could help it; but please never hint at anything of the sort to Ruth. She is very reserved, and would hate to be talked about!” cried Mollie hastily.
Across the lawn Ruth’s graceful figure could be seen kneeling in front of a bed of flowers which she was fastening to supporting sticks in her usual neat, methodical fashion. No one could have recognised that bed as the same confused broken-down mass of blossom which it had been an hour earlier.