It was the sweetbriar hedge that made me decide to miss the 9.15. It clutched hold of me suddenly and told me that the sky was very blue and the woods very green, and that the office was an absurd thing on such a day.
I went slowly back home round the outside of the garden wall. Someone was singing in the garden. I stopped and whistled a tune. A face appeared over the wall—rather an attractive face.
"Hello!" it said; "someone I knew a long time ago used to whistle that tune outside my garden."
"Hello!" I said; "come out for a walk?"
"I can't come out at the bidding of young men on the highway. It isn't done."
"Never mind. Come out."
"Have I ever been introduced to you?"
"Introductions went out years ago. Come by the side gate."
She came. She held a shady hat in her hand and walked on tip-toe.
"Sh!" she cautioned; "no one must see me. I have a reputation, you know. I don't want the Vicar to denounce me from the pulpit on Sunday in front of Baby."