Greeby's broad back disappear behind the laurels. "Nothing half so
pretty. She's like a great Flanders mare. And I wish Henry VIII was
alive to marry her," she added the epithet suggesting that king, "if
only to cut her head off."




CHAPTER II.

IN THE WOOD.


Miss Greeby swung along towards her destination with a masculine stride
and in as great a hurry as though she had entered herself for a Marathon
race. It was a warm, misty day, and the pale August sunshine radiated
faintly through the smoky atmosphere. Nothing was clear-cut and nothing
was distinct, so hazy was the outlook. The hedges were losing their
greenery and had blossomed forth into myriad bunches of ruddy hips and
haws, and the usually hard road was soft underfoot because of the
penetrating quality of the moist air. There was no wind to clear away
the misty greyness, but yellow leaves without its aid dropped from the
disconsolate trees. The lately-reaped fields, stretching on either side
of the lane down which the lady was walking, presented a stubbled
expanse of brown and dim gold, uneven and distressful to the eye. The
dying world was in ruins and Nature had reduced herself to that
necessary chaos, out of which, when the coming snow completed its task,
she would build a new heaven and a new earth.

An artist might have had some such poetic fancy, and would certainly