"And you are going to stay in Rushbrook a long time. Mrs. Lennard has been telling me all her plans. The rector is coming here on his return from Switzerland, and then you will all pay the long-promised visit to the Court."
"We shall see," Elsie returned, with a little air of gravity. "The present is so lovely that I don't care to look into the future, Mr. Wayne. I am charmed with the river. I like to smell the damp, fresh scent of the sedges."
"I'm glad it does you good," he answered, rather absently. "You have some fine carnations there," he added, lightly touching the flowers on her lap.
"Yes; Mr. Ryan gathered them after breakfast."
She spoke the words without thinking about them at all, and she was not looking at Arnold when she uttered them. If his face changed, she did not see it.
"So he is beginning to give her flowers already," Arnold thought.
Meanwhile Elsie was wondering whether he had yet seen Mrs. Verdon. The two widows had travelled down to Rushbrook on Monday, and this was Wednesday.
"Jamie must be delighted to be here," she said after a little pause.
"He is quite radiant," Arnold replied. "What lungs the boy has! I could hear him shouting as I walked up the lane to The Cedars yesterday afternoon."
"So he has called on her already," Elsie thought.