"I forbid it. Don't you go
and put anything of the sort into her head. The young man I mean her to
marry comes back from Nigeria this very day."
"She won't marry him!"
"We shall see."
* * * * *
Diana drove home through lanes suffused with sunset and rich with
autumn. There had been much rain through September, and the deluged
earth steamed under the return of the sun. Mists were rising from the
stubbles, and wrapping the woods in sleep and purple. To her the beauty
of it all was of a mask or pageant--seen from a distance across a plain
or through a street-opening--lovely and remote. All that was real--all
that lived--was the image within the mind; not the great
earth-show without.
As she passed through the village she fell in with the Roughsedges: the
doctor, with his wide-awake on the back of his head, a book and a
bulging umbrella under his arm; Mrs. Roughsedge, in a new shawl, and new
bonnet-strings, with a prodigal flutter of side curls beside her ample
countenance. Hugh, it appeared, was expected by an evening train. Diana
begged that he might be brought up to see her some time in the course of
the following afternoon.
Pages:
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649