Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE GAEDEN One dewy morning, after they had been at Foyle for a week or so, Anne woke very early and looked out of the window. White dew was on the lawns and no smoke arose from the chimneys of the lodge, which peeped from among the trees and bushes. Dawn had stolen up, and the full light of the long summer day had taken the sleeping world unawares. The air was sweet and virginal, and full of the song of birds fluting among the lilacs. Here was a new delight, this fresh unspoilt world which the sun was just beginning to warm. It was impossible to go back to bed again and sleep away those glorious hours of early morning. Anne dressed and called Hugh. Together they stole through the silent house and out into the clamorous life of the garden. Mr. Williams was in favour at that moment —his popularity rose and fell—so they threw pebbles in at his open window, and, when a tangled apologetic head appeared under the eaves, announced that the day's activities were about to begin, and invited him to share them. After that happy morning Anne promulgated a decree: bedtime would be immediately after dinner when the Admiral was at home, and earlier still if he were away, and the day would begin not later than fiveo'clock in the morning, as long as the summer lasted. So they tasted the fulness of the pleasures of the open air, and of all that glorious summer wasted scarcely an hour of daylight. Their life was spent almost entirely in the open air. Dunster, who seemed to get his own way in everything, although to all appearance acting under the sternest discipline, produced the promised side saddle for Anne, and she and Hugh made long expeditions over the breezy downs, and along the winding valley roads. They busied themselves in the farmyard, and in the plots which Dunste...