He grasps it eagerly—such a warm slim hand!
"It was rather a nice introduction, wasn't it?"
Philip thinks how amazingly pretty Eleanor is, as she assents with deepening colour.
"There! I knew it would come!" she cries, with a thought for her new poppy-bedizened hat.
"What?" asks Philip, still feasting his eyes on the girl's fair physique, and unobservant of the gathering darkness overhead.
"Why, the rain, of course. We shall get wet."
"Only a summer shower."
"Yes, but as disastrous in its effects as any other downpour. I shall make for that barn in the next field; the children have all mysteriously vanished."
"I am dreadfully afraid of the wet," declares Philip, pretending to shiver. "May I accompany you?"
He is still retaining her hand as they run together towards the haven of "shelter.