"Mrs. Crampton says that she knows her master would approve, so I suppose we need not be too scrupulous," observed Marcus; but at that moment the surgery bell rang.
Dr. Luttrell's services were required at number seventeen, and with an expressive look at his wife Marcus took up his hat and hastened out.
Olivia had expected Greta quite early, but she did not make her appearance until late in the afternoon. She had been detained, she said—nurse had asked her to take her place for a couple of hours. And then she looked anxiously at Olivia.
"I am afraid Alwyn is ill," she observed; but Olivia assured her that it was only a temporary break-down. "We have such good news of Mr. Gaythorne that he cannot fail to be cheered, but of course he is fretting about the loss of his mother and sister. It was such a shock, you see, and, as my husband says, we must give him time to pull himself together. But you do not look very well yourself, Greta; you are terribly pale."
"Oh, that is nothing," she returned. "I suppose I was too much excited, for I could not sleep for hours. I seemed to be living through my old life again. They were such happy days, Mrs. Luttrell; one's existence was not meagre and colourless then."
"I wish you would tell me a little about it all," observed Olivia as she ensconced Greta in the most comfortable chair. "You cannot imagine how it interests me." And then Miss Williams smiled.
"Oh, you are so sympathetic—that is your great charm; but indeed I love to dwell on that part of my life. You know the Gaythornes lived at Medlicott Grange. It was a quaint, picturesque, old house, covered with ivy, and with a lovely garden. There was a lime-walk that was delicious on hot summer afternoons; I can smell the limes now.
"Mr. Gaythorne, who had been abroad a great many years, had taken a fancy to the place and half thought of buying it, but he changed his mind later.
"We lived at the Lodge, a much smaller house, looking over the village green; it was rather an inconvenient house, full of small rooms all opening out of each other, and long, rambling passages; but dear mother and I were very fond of it. We liked the three-cornered little drawing-room with its bay-window, where we could sit and work and watch the old men in their grey smocks having a palaver under the big elm in the centre of the green.
"Mrs. Luttrell"—interrupting herself—"do you know Ivy Dene Lodge is to let now? I saw the advertisement in the Standard. Now, I should love to live there again. If anything happened to poor father I know I should go back there; it is the only place I ever called home. Don't you love a village green, with geese waddling over it and a big pond where little bare-legged urchins are always sailing their boats, and then the church and the lich-gate and the vicarage smothered in creepers?"