As soon as I saw her I said
to my gardener boy, Henry Luton, who was pushing me--he's the son of
old Mrs Luton who kept the fish shop, and when she died last year, I
began to get my fish from Brinton, for I didn't fancy the look of the
new person who took on the business, and Henry went to live with his
aunt. That was his father's sister, not his mother's, for Mrs Luton
never had a sister, and no brothers either. Well, I said to Henry, 'You
can go a bit slower, Henry, as we're late, we're late, and a minute or
two more doesn't make any difference.' 'No, ma'am,' said Henry touching
his cap, so we went slower. Miss Bracely was just opposite the
ducking-pond then, and presently she came out between the elms. She
had just an ordinary morning frock on; it was dark-blue, about the same
shade as your cape, Mrs Antrobus, or perhaps a little darker, for the
sunshine brightened it up. Quite simple it was, nothing grand. And she
looked at the watch on her wrist, and she seemed to me to walk a little
quicker after that, as if she was a bit late, just as I was. But slower
than I was going, I could not go, for I was crawling along, and before
she got off the grass, I had come to the corner of Church Lane, and
though I turned my head round sharp, like that, at the very last moment,
so as to catch the last of her, she hadn't more than stepped off the
grass onto the road before the laurestinus at the corner of Colonel
Boucher's garden--no, of the Vicar's garden--hid her from me.
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