and fell in gentle undulations. Still in perfect silence the girls walked on. But their pace was not so good as at first—one might almost indeed have said that their footsteps lagged.
A turn of the road brought to view a village green, a duck-pond, a pleasant-looking inn. In front of this Lucilla stopped.
"Look here, Jane," she said.
"We said we wouldn't talk," said Jane rather faintly.
"Who wants to talk?" Lucilla asked. "What I want isn't talk, it's something to eat. Do you realise that you dragged me out without breakfast?"
"It was silly," said Jane; "very. At the same time, I'm quite sure we couldn't have eaten a proper breakfast just after reading that letter."
"Perhaps not," Lucilla admitted, "but I want my breakfast, and I'm going to have it here—in these tea-gardens at the side of the inn."
"I'm hungry too," said Jane; "at least, I feel as if I'd been for hours in a swing-boat. I suppose that's what people mean when they say they feel faint for want of food. But oh, Lucy, I'm so sorry. I didn't bring any money!"
"I did," said Lucilla grimly, and led the way to the green-latticed tea-gardens.
In a tumble-down arbour, with faded blue seats and a faded blue, warped table, breakfast was presently served to them.
"Oh, Lucilla, you are It!" Jane admitted. "Doesn't the bacon smell lovely? And the coffee? Sweeter than roses in their prime. . . . And real toast in a proper toast-rack! . . ."
"Don't talk," said Lucilla; "eat."
After a silence full of emotion Jane spoke again.
"I never had breakfast out of doors before—and all by our two selves, too. . . . Surely even you will admit that this is a lark?"
"It would be," said Lucilla, "if"
