"We shall start," said Daphne, "in twenty minutes."

It was nearly half-past ten in the morning of a beautiful summer day,
and we were all taking our ease in the sunshine upon the terrace. It was
the first Sunday which we had spent all together at White Ladies for
nearly five years.

So far as the eye could see, nothing had changed.

At the foot of the steps the great smooth lawn stretched like a fine
green carpet, its shadowed patches yet bright with dew. There were the
tall elms and the copper beech and all the proud company of spreading
giants--what were five years to them? There was the clump of
rhododendrons, a ragged blotch of crimson, seemingly spilled upon the
green turf, and there the close box hedge that walled away the
rose-garden. Beyond the sunk fence a gap showed an acre or so of Bull's
Mead--a great deep meadow, and in it two horses beneath a chestnut tree,
their long tails a-swish, sleepily nosing each other to rout the flies;
while in the distance the haze of heat hung like a film over the rolling
hills. Close at hand echoed the soft impertinence of a cuckoo, and two
fat wood-pigeons waddled about the lawn, picking and stealing as they
went. The sky was cloudless, and there was not a breath of wind.

The stable clock chimed the half-hour.

My sister returned to the attack.

"Are you coming, Boy?"