The first couple of days at Ambleside were a delight to Joy. In the change from the roar and ceaseless whirl of London was such a sense of peace that it influenced even the pain of her heart-hunger. Here in this lovely place, where despite the life and movement of the little town nature seemed to reign, was something to calm nerves overstrung with waiting and apprehension. It was a relief to her at first, a pleasure later, to walk about the pleasant roads with her father; to take long drives beneath shady trees or up on the hillside where the lake lay below like a panorama; to sit on the steamer's deck and drift along the beautiful lake.
Her father was now and again impatient, not with her but because of the non-arrival of the motor which he had ordered in London. It had not been quite ready when they left and so it was arranged that it should follow them. He wanted to have it in possession so that they could fly all over the region; the American in him was clamorous for movement, for speed and progress! He kept up an endless telegraphing with the motor people in London, and when at last they wired that the car was nearly ready he got a map and traced out the route. Each day he marked out a space that he thought it ought to have covered, crediting it for every hour of daylight with top speed. After all, no matter what our ages may be, we are but children and the new toy but renews the old want and the old impatience; bringing in turn the old disillusionment and the old empty-hearted discontent. And the new toy may be of any shape: even that of a motor-car—or a beating human heart.
Partly out of affection for her father and so from sym-
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