By the time the very long and dull suburbs of Bexley were passed,
with their interminable villas and rows of little ten-pound houses--
the children's daily country walk, poor things! the two elder boys
and their sister were overtaken, the latter now very glad to
condescend to the van.
'Oh, how nice to get beyond our tiresome old tether!' she said,
arranging herself a peep-hole between the curtains. 'I am so sick of
all those dusty black beeches, and formal evergreens. How can you
stare at them so, Cherry?'
But Geraldine was in a quiet trance of delight; she had never spoken
a word since she had first found a chink in the awning, but had
watched with avid eyes the moving panorama of houses, gardens, trees,
flowers, carriages, horses, passengers, nursemaids, perambulators,
and children. It was all a perfect feast to the long-imprisoned eyes,
and the more charming from the dreamy silence in which she gazed.
When Felix came up to the slit through which the bright eyes gleamed,
and asked whether she were comfortable and liked it, her answer was a
long-drawn gasp from the wells of infinite satisfaction, such as set
him calculating how many drives in a bathchair the remnant of his
birthday gift would yet produce.
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