The color rushed to her face, and she stopped short. "Percival! You here?" she said.
"Yes: did I startle you? I was driving into the town, and saw you in the distance. I could not do less—could I?—than stop then and there to pay my respects to the queen of the day. And what a glorious day it is!"
Lottie sprang over the stile, and looked up and down the road. "Oh, you are going to walk?" she said.
"I'm going to walk—yes. But what brings you here wandering about the fields to-day?"
She had recovered her composure, and looked up at him with laughing eyes: "It is wretched indoors. They are so busy fussing over things for to-night, you know."
"Exactly what I thought you would be doing too."
"I? Oh, mamma said I wasn't a bit of use, and Addie said that I was more than enough to drive Job out of his mind. The fact was, I upset one of her flower-vases. And afterward—well, afterward I broke a big china bowl."
"I begin to understand," said Percival thoughtfully, "that they might feel able to get on without your help."
"Yes, perhaps they might. But they needn't have made such a noise about the thing, as if nobody could enjoy the dance to-night because a china bowl was smashed! Such rubbish! What could it matter?"
"Was it something unique?"