Alie turned too, but Biddy walked on.
'I don't want to look again,' she said. 'I've said good-night to him once.'
Mrs. Vane glanced at Rosalys.
'What's the matter now?' her glance seemed to say.
Rosalys smiled back.
'It isn't naughtiness,' she whispered. 'It's only some fancy.'
And so it was.
'I said good-night to him when I'd fixed to try to be good,' Bride was saying to herself, 'and if I look at him again now it'll undo the fixing. Besides, I've begun to feel a little naughty again already—I don't like Rosamund's mamma.'
As they walked up the path, Smut, who was really Mrs. Vane's dog and had got his own ideas as to etiquette, returned to his mistress's side and trotted along gravely. He knew that his chances of scampers were over for the day, for not even the most ardent runner could have crossed the field at full speed without coming to grief. It was rough and stony, and to call it a field was a figure of speech; the soil was nothing but sand, and the grass was of the coarsest. But the Rectory stood on rather rising ground, and old Dr. Bunton and his wife had fortunately been fond of gardening. The lawn on the farther side of the house was very respectable, and more flowers and shrubs had been coaxed to grow than could have been expected. Still, to newcomers fresh from a comfortable town-house—and there is no denying that as far as comfort goes a town-house in winter has many advantages over a small country one—it did look somewhat dreary and desolate. All the brightness had gone out of the sky by now; it loomed blue-gray behind the chimneys, and a faint murmuring as of wind in the distance getting up its forces began to be heard.
Mrs. Vane shivered a little.