"Delightful!" she said."Oh! how glad I am to be here! London has been so hot and so dull.I never thought it hot or dull before.Ifeel a renegade.Ah! there is the lovely little church! I want to hear the new organ.I was glad your nice parson remembered me and let me have a share in it.Has it two manuals or three?""Half a dozen I think," said Lady Ingleby, "and you work them up and down with your feet.But I judged it wiser to leave them alone when I played for the children's service one Sunday.You never know quite what will happen if you touch those mechanical affairs.""Don't you mean the composition pedals?" suggested Jane.
"I dare say I do," said Myra placidly."Those things underneath, like foot-rests, which startle you horribly if you accidentally kick them."Jane smiled at the thought of how Garth would throw back his head and shout, if she told him of this conversation.Lady Ingleby's musical remarks always amused her friends.
They passed the village church on the green, ivy-clad, picturesque, and, half a minute later, swerved in at the park gates.Myra saw Jane glance at the gate-post they had just shaved, and laughed."Amiss is as good as a mile," she said, as they dashed up the long drive between the elms, "as I told dear mamma, when she expostulated wrathfully with me for what she called my 'furious driving' the other day.By the way, Jane, dear mamma has been quite CORDIALlately.By the time I am seventy and she is ninety-eight I think she will begin to be almost fond of me.Here we are.Do notice Lawson.
He is new, and such a nice man.He sings so well, and plays the concertina a little, and teaches in the Sunday-school, and speaks really quite excellently at temperance meetings.He is extremely fond of mowing the lawns, and my maid tells me he is studying French with her.The only thing he seems really incapable of being, is an efficient butler; which is so unfortunate, as I like him far too well ever to part with him.Michael says I have a perfectly fatal habit of LIKING PEOPLE, and of encouraging them to do the things they do well and enjoy doing, instead of the things they were engaged to do.I suppose I have; but I do like my household to be happy."They alighted, and Myra trailed into the hall with a lazy grace which gave no indication of the masterly way she had handled her ponies, but rather suggested stepping from a comfortable seat in a barouche.Jane looked with interest at the man-servant who came forward and deftly assisted them.He had not quite the air of a butler but neither could she imagine him playing a concertina or haranguing a temperance meeting and he acquitted himself quite creditably.
"Oh, that was not Lawson," explained Myra, as she led the way upstairs."I had forgotten.He had to go to the vicarage this afternoon to see the vicar about a 'service of song' they are getting up.That was Tom, but we call him 'Jephson' in the house.He was one of Michael's stud grooms, but he is engaged to one of the housemaids, and I found he so very much preferred being in the house, so I have arranged for him to understudy Lawson, and he is growing side whiskers.I shall have to break it to Michael on his return from Norway.This way, Jane.We have put you in the Magnolia room.I knew you would enjoy the view of the lake.Oh, I forgot to tell you, a tennis tournament is in progress.I must hasten to the courts.Tea will be going on there, under the chestnuts.Dal and Ronnie are to play the final for the men's singles.It ought to be a fine match.It was to come on at about half-past four.Don't wait to do any changings.Your maid and your luggage can't be here just yet.""Thanks," said Jane; "I always travel in country clothes, and have done so to-day, as you see.I will just get rid of the railway dust, and follow you."Ten minutes later, guided by sounds of cheering and laughter, Jane made her way through the shrubbery to the tennis lawns.The whole of Lady Ingleby's house party was assembled there, forming a picturesque group under the white and scarlet chestnut-trees.
Beyond, on the beautifully kept turf of the court, an exciting set was in progress.As she approached, Jane could distinguish Garth's slim, agile figure, in white flannels and the violet shirt; and young Ronnie, huge and powerful, trusting to the terrific force of his cuts and drives to counterbalance Garth's keener eye and swifter turn of wrist.
It was a fine game.Garth had won the first set by six to four, and now the score stood at five to four in Ronnie's favour; but this game was Garth's service, and he was almost certain to win it.The score would then be "games all."Jane walked along the line of garden chairs to where she saw a vacant one near Myra.She was greeted with delight, but hurriedly, by the eager watchers of the game.
Suddenly a howl went up.Garth had made two faults.
Jane found her chair, and turned her attention to the game.Almost instantly shrieks of astonishment and surprise again arose.Garth had served INTO the net and OVER the line.Game and set were Ronnie's.
"one all," remarked Billy."Well! I never saw Dal do THAT before.
However; it gives us the bliss of watching another set.They are splendidly matched.Dal is lightning, and Ronnie thunder."The players crossed over, Garth rather white beneath his tan.He was beyond words vexed with himself for failing in his service, at that critical juncture.Not that he minded losing the set; but it seemed to him it must be patent to the whole crowd, that it was the sight, out of the tail of his eye, of a tall grey figure moving quietly along the line of chairs, which for a moment or two set earth and sky whirling, and made a confused blur of net and lines.As a matter of fact, only one of the onlookers connected Garth's loss of the game with Jane's arrival, and she was the lovely girl, seated exactly opposite the net, with whom he exchanged a smile and a word as he crossed to the other side of the court.
