It was what
Miss Caroline called her "day," a bi-monthly occasion when she sat in
state--and a villainous shade of mauve satin--to receive visitors. During
the winter this sacred rite resolved itself chiefly into an opportunity for
tea and feminine gossip in a hot, ill-ventilated room, but in the summer
it was rather a pleasant little function. Tea was served in the pretty old
rectory garden, and the proceedings developed on the lines of an informal
garden-party at which most of the neighbours, of both sexes, showed up. For
although Miss Caroline was of too inquiring a mind to be very popular, the
rector himself was beloved by men and women alike.
The morning hours seemed to Ann interminably long. Insensibly she was keyed
up to a delicate pitch of expectancy, her ear nervously alert for the sound
of a familiar footstep on the flagged path. And as the leaden moments
crawled by, and the warm, sunshiny silence which enfolded the Cottage
remained unbroken, a vague sense of apprehension crept into her heart.
The glamour of those moments alone with Eliot at the gate, the pulsating
sweetness of the thoughts which, in the night, had sent little quivering
rivulets of fire racing through her veins, grew dim and uncertain.
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