Will O’ the Wisp Read Online Free PDF Page B

really matter. Tact and the social conventions seemed to have vanished. David had always been a singularly direct person. There was a sort of comfort about it. She said:
    â€œYes, I see.”
    â€œThen, when will you come down to Ford?”
    â€œI don’t know. Do you go up and down every day?”
    â€œI do in summer, and when I’m not too busy. It’s only thirty miles. When will you come?”
    â€œWell—I’ve got Folly March coming to me.”
    David stared.
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œTo stay.”
    â€œMy dear girl!”
    Eleanor laughed, sat down on the fender-stool, and removed a shrieking Timmy from her shoulder.
    â€œTimothy, you’re not to bite my hair! Oh, you little horror!”
    The kitten spat, scratched, and fled. After glaring defiance from the middle of the floor, he backed sideways to the marble table with its gilded supports and lurked behind a bulging Cupid’s foot.
    â€œGeorge is going to pay visits—bachelor visits; so I said I’d have Folly. We came home on the same boat, you know. I expect George will be away for about a month.”
    â€œWhat are you going to do with her? You’d better bring her to Ford. She can’t get into mischief there, anyhow.”
    Eleanor looked resigned. The corners of her mouth twitched and something danced in her dark eyes.
    â€œFolly March can get into mischief anywhere,” she said.

CHAPTER V
    It was over a hundred years since the Fordyces had crossed the Tweed. David’s great-grandfather bought the estate, to which he gave the name of Ford, and began to build the house, which was finished by his son.
    To Ford Anna St. Kern came as a bride; and at Ford she presently developed into Grandmamma. David’s father being a widower at the time of his succession, her rule endured until his death, after which, greatly to David’s relief, she announced a preference for London. With a masterly grasp of the situation she installed herself in the very middle of the Family web. She very seldom went out; but the Family came to her, and she directed its affairs with merciless decision.
    The house at Ford was a comfortable square Georgian building of modest size. It stood on a grassy spur which ran down gently into woodland on two sides, and on the third dropped sharply from an artificial terrace to a fair-sized sheet of water. The terrace was bounded by a low stone wall, and a long grey flight of steps led down to the water’s edge.
    Eleanor Rayne came down to Ford and brought Folly March with her.
    â€œAnd remember, Folly, you’ve promised to be good.”
    â€œI’m bored when I’m good—and I can’t be good when I’m bored.”
    â€œYou can if you like,” said Eleanor, laughing.
    Folly was good for two days. She rode with David; she played golf with Eleanor; and she let Betty teach her a double patience in the evenings.
    Eleanor found it very pleasant to be at Ford again, and very pleasant to be with David. After a cold spell, January was playing at spring, with soft fresh winds, April showers, and exquisite pale turquoise skies.
    On the third evening Folly looked askance at Betty’s patience board. They were sitting in the drawing-room, “to air it,” as Betty said. She was one of the people whose rooms have no middle stage between stiffness and disorder; and the drawing-room, which David hated, was as coldly angular as a problem in geometry.
    Eleanor amused herself by thinking of how different it could be made. The cold, faded brocade curtains would go, of course. The room wanted bright chintzes; it wanted colour and life, more flowers, and a few dark rugs, instead of half an acre of prehistoric Brussels.
    Folly also had ideas of her own—the room was large; it had a parquet floor smothered by a frightful carpet. She came up to David with her hands behind her back, tilted her chin at him, and said:
    â€œ Do get married and give a