It required a walk of two fat miles to get to Rodchurch, and
one had to start early if one did not want to arrive there hot and
flustered; again there was the risk of rain overtaking one in one's
best dress. Every fine Sunday she used to talk at breakfast of
intending to go to the morning service; and at dinner of intending to
go to the evening service.
If she carried either the first or the second intention into effect,
it was Dale's custom to go along the road and meet her returning. And
this he now prepared to do, on a warm dry April morning, when
obviously there could be no fear of rain and she had set out in her
best directly after breakfast.
Dale loved the quiet and the freedom from interruption of these Sunday
mornings; he enjoyed the luxury of being able to smoke in the office
while he made up his books, and reveled in the lolling ease of the old
porter's chair as he read Saturday's _Courier_ and the last number of
_Answers_. To-day he was peculiarly conscious of the soothing Sunday
hush that had fallen widely on the land. All the doors and windows
stood open, so that the soft air flowed like water through and through
the house, making it an undivided part of the one great generous
flooding atmosphere, and giving sensations of vast space and free
activities as well as those produced by guarded comfort and motionless
repose.
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