LOLLY WILLOWES
had been unsuited for holidays—there were at first a good many traces of war lying about, such as sandbags and barbed-wire entanglements. But on the following summer the sandbags had rotted and burst and the barbedwire had been absorbed into the farmer's fences. So, Laura thought, such warlike phenomena as Mr. Wolf-Saunders, Fancy's second husband, and Jemima and Rosalind, Fancy's two daughters, might well disappear off the family landscape. Mr. Wolf-Saunders recumbent on the beach was indeed much like a sandbag, and no more arresting to the eye. Jemima and Rosalind were more obtrusive. Here was a new generation to call her Aunt Lolly and find her as indispensable as did the last.
"It is quite like old times," said Caroline, who sat working beside her. "Isn't it, Lolly?"
"Except for these anachronisms," said Laura.
Caroline removed the seaweed which Jemima had stuffed into her work-bag. "Bless them!" she said absently. "We shall soon be back in town again."
74
