"Nonsense!" said Helen Heath, meaningly, as Mrs. Laudersdale, when the
others joined them, displayed her first capture. "Is that all you've
caught?"
Mrs. Laudersdale drew in another for reply.
"How absurd!" said Helen. "Here a month ago you were the dearest and
most helpless of mortals, and now you are doing everything!"
The other opened her eyes a moment, and then laughed.
"Hush!" said she.
"Shs! shs!" echoed Capua, making an infinite hubbub himself.
Silence accordingly reigned and produced a string fit for the Sultan's
kitchen,--of all the number, Mrs. Laudersdale adding by far the
majority,--possibly because her shining prey found destination in
the same basket with Mr. Raleigh's,--possibly because, as Helen had
intimated, a sudden deftness had bewitched her fingers, so that neither
dropping rod nor tangling reel detained her for an instant.
"Our lines have fallen in pleasant places," said Helen, as they took at
last their homeward path; "and what a shame! not an adventure yet!"
Mrs. McLean hung on Mr. Raleigh's arm as they went,--for she had taken a
whim and feared to see her cousin in the fangs of a coquette; by which
means Helen became the companion of Captain Purcell and his daughter,
and Mrs. Laudersdale kept lightly in advance, leading a gambol with
the greyhound that Capua had added to the party, and presenting in one
person, as she went springing from knoll to knoll along the bank, now in
sunshine, now in shade, lifting the green boughs or sweeping them aside,
a succession of the vivid figures of some antique and processional
frieze.
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