The autumn was beginning, and the crimson creepers on church and wall were at the height of their glow. Betty Ives was strolling in the parsonage garden gathering plums from the wall.
The garden-door was on the latch, it needed but to raise it, and Mistress Mary Jones walked in. Betty went eagerly forward to meet her with out-stretched hands. No welcome could be more cordial than that which Betty Ives gave to her friends.
"I am so glad to see you, Mary? and are you well? Have you lost your headache?"
Miss Mary sank into a garden-seat and sighed, still retaining the hand of her friend.
"I am better, sweet Bet," she said; "but my nerves will not recover the shock for years! No, no! do not shake your head and smile; if you had the crawlings up the back that I experience, and the creepings down the spine, and the shaking of knees, the twittering of the lips, and quivering of the eyelids—"
"Enough, enough!" cried Betty. "Thank Heaven, I am not tormented thus! My dear Mary, how can you survive such a multitude of ailments?"
"I have survived worse!" she answered, shuddering. "I survived the shock itself."
"Were you very much frightened?" asked Betty in a tone of interest.
"Frightened! I was terrified. I have not nerve like yours. The dark, the shot! the dark faces, the loud voices, the ... ah!"
Seeing Mary's chest beginning to heave, Betty thought it high time to change the subject. "We will not recall it," she said hastily. "Let us think on more agreeable topics. My father rode into Wancote this morning, to stroll about the marketplace and hear the news."