"That is a good thing," said Elsie, raising the carnations to her face.
"He'll marry, I suppose," Francis Ryan went on. "The Danforths are trying to make up the match with Mrs. Verdon. Do you know her? A fair woman, with sky-blue eyes. She has come to The Cedars again, close to the Court; so that looks as if she meant business."
This was the news that Elsie heard on her first day at Willow Farm. It gave her a strong desire for solitude, and she was glad when Francis said that he must go and look after one of the horses. She waited until he had disappeared, and then went down a long gravelled walk, between crowded borders, to a little white gate. Lifting the latch, she walked across a green meadow, and found herself close to the brink of a river. Rushbrook was a place of many waters, a land of green and silver, beautiful with the peace that belongs to a pastoral country. She soon found a cosy nook on an old tree-trunk in the shade, and sat down to think. It was a good spot for a reverie. You could listen to the whisper of the water among the sedges, and look off, across the river, to the low-lying meadows beyond—a scene which was fascinating in its intense quietness. It rests the eye and brain to gaze at those cool green levels, broidered with silvery rivulets, and watch the water stealing among rushes and tall rustling reeds.
"IT WAS A GOOD SPOT FOR A REVERIE."
It was a lovely morning—soft, hazy, exquisite, as mornings in August often are. Looking back across the meadow, Elsie saw a row of copper-beeches standing in an even line against the deep, dreamy blue of the sky. Away to the left was a mass of foliage hiding the red peaked roof of Willow Farm.
She had not expected to be very happy when she came to Rushbrook. Deep down in her heart was a fear which she kept carefully covered over; she was ashamed of its very existence, and strove to hide it from her own sight. It was Mrs. Verdon—always Mrs. Verdon—who was to have everything worth having.