Hilda, Edith, Eleanor, and Beatrice all looked very solemn and mysterious; James chuckled; Hugh brightened visibly. "Well, I suppose we mustn't mind a stranger's coming to spoil our happy party," Hilda sighed. "Ah, this will be your new secretary of whom rumor has already spoken," said Laurence. "Possibly she will give me some advice on the subject of the typing of manuscripts." "Miss Hamilton will be very busy while she is staying here," said John, curtly. Everybody looked at everybody else, and there was an awkward pause, which was relieved by Harold's saying that he would show her where he thought a goldfinch would make a nest in spring. "Dear little man," murmured his mother with a sigh for his childish confidence. "Shall _I_ drive in to meet her?" Hugh suggested. "No, thank you," said John, quickly. "That's right, Johnnie," James guffawed. "You stick to the reins yourself." CHAPTER XII John did not consider himself a first-class whip: if he had been offered the choice between swimming to meet his love like Leander, climbing into her father's orchard like Romeo, and driving to meet her with a dog-cart, he would certainly, had the engagement shown signs of being a long one, have chosen any mode of trysting except the last. This morning, however, he was not as usual oppressed by a sense of imperfect sympathy between himself and the mare; he did not think she was going to have hysterics when she blew her nose, nor fancy that she was on the verge of bolting when she tossed her chestnut mane; the absence of William the groom seemed a matter for congratulation rather than for regret; he felt as reckless as Phaeton, as urgent as Jehu, and the mare knew it. Generally, when her master held the reins, she would try to walk up steep banks or emulate in her capricious greed the lofty browsings of the giraffe; this morning at a steady swinging trot she kept to the middle of the road, passed two motor-cars without trying to box the landscape, and did not even shy at the new hat of the vicar's wife. Later on, however, when John was safe in the station-yard and saw the familiar way in which Miss Hamilton patted the mare he decided not to take any risk on the return journey and in spite of his brother's parting gibe to hand over the reins to his secretary; nor was the symbolism of the action distasteful. How charming she looked in that mauve frieze! How well the color was harmonizing with the purple hedgerows! How naturally she seemed to haunt the woodland scene! "Oh, this exquisite country," she sighed. "Fancy staying in London when you can write here!" "It does seem absurd," the lucky author agreed. "But the house is very full at present. We shall be rather exposed to interruptions until the party breaks up." He gave her an account of the Christmas festival, to which she seemed able to listen comfortably and appreciatively in spite of the fact that she was driving. This impressed John very much.