I missed six trains once by finishing a game
of croquet. And Mr Georgie was so unkind: he wouldn't give me a cup of
tea, or let me change my frock, but dragged me off to see you. And I
won!"
The autumn leaves turned green and vigorous again, while Georgie went
to get refreshment for his conqueror, and they were all introduced. She
allowed herself to be taken with the utmost docility--how unlike
Somebody--into the tent with the thrones: she confessed to having stood
on tiptoe and looked into Mrs Quantock's garden and wanted to see it so
much from the other side of the wall. And this garden, too--might she
go and wander all over this garden when she had finished the most
delicious peach that the world held? She was so glad she had not had
tea with Mr Georgie: he would never have given her such a good
peach....
Now the departing guests in their Hightums, lingering on the village
green a little, and being rather sarcastic about the utter failure of
Lucia's party, could hardly help seeing Georgie and Olga emerge from
his house and proceed swiftly in the direction of The Hurst, and Mrs
Antrobus who retained marvellous eyesight as compensation for her
defective hearing, saw them go in, and simultaneously thought that she
had left her parasol at The Hurst. Next moment she was walking
thoughtfully away in that direction. Mrs Weston had been the next to
realize what had happened, and though she had to go round by the road
in her bath-chair, she passed Mrs Antrobus a hundred yards from the
house, her pretext for going back being that Lucia had promised to lend
her the book by Antonio Caporelli (or was it Caporelto?).
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