"It is, then, dearer to you than Grey-Mount?"
Averil hesitated, and was half annoyed, half amused at this curious pertinacity on her cousin's part. "Comparisons are odious," she said, lightly. "One does not measure one's friendship. Mr. Harland is my very good friend; but still"—with a thoughtful look and a sigh that was quickly repressed—"I am happier at the Dove-cote."
Here the carriage stopped, and in the bustle of taking tickets, and finding a less crowded compartment, the subject dropped.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DOVE-COTE.
The next hour passed quickly. Averil had her book, and Annette amused herself with looking out of the window. "How could one read," she thought, "when the sun was shining, and the foals were frolicking beside their mothers, and every green field had its picturesque group of feeding cattle and sheep? It was like turning over the pages of a picture-book. Now they came to a cluster of cottages with a little Norman church, half hidden in trees; then a winding road; a clear, silvery river, with gay little boats floating on it, with fine houses beside it; then another pastoral scene, and so on. Is not the world beautiful?" thought Annette, as the train stopped, and Averil beckoned to her. She was almost sorry that the journey was over.
She heard Averil order a fly, and then followed her into a curious old inn. They sat for a few minutes in a close, stuffy parlor, with a print of the battle of Trafalgar over the fire-place.
"We have a mile and a half still to go," Averil said. "If I could only walk through those delicious lanes! But old Jemmy always has to take me. Ah! there comes our chariot. Rather a ramshackle affair, is it not, Annette? But Jemmy and his old mare are both worthy creatures."
Annette had no fault to find with the lumbering wheezy vehicle; she was looking delightedly at the rich hedge-rows with their wealth of wild-flowers, at the rustic cottages with their gay little gardens, at the green fields with browsing cattle. Every moment there was something to admire. Presently they came to a sort of hamlet; there was a village inn, with The Duck and Drake swinging on the old sign-board, a few scattered cottages with heavy thatched roofs, and a small green with snow-white geese waddling over it. Here Jemmy, a gray-haired, wizen-faced man drew up of his own accord.