I've managed to pack a good many into thirty short years.--
And that reminds me, Mrs. Townshend-Mahony, do you know you will have
been married to me two whole years, come next Friday?"
"Why, so we shall!" cried Polly, and was transfixed in the act of tying
her bonnet-strings. "How time does fly! It seems only the other day I
saw this room for the first time. I peeped in, you know, while you were
fetching the box. DO you remember how I cried, Richard? I was afraid of
a spider or something." And the Polly of eighteen looked back, with a
motherly amusement, at her sixteen-year-old eidolon. "But now, dear, if
you're ready . . . or else the furniture will get there before we do.
We'd better take the short cut across Soldiers' Hill. That's the cat in
that basket, for you to carry, and here's your microscope. I've got the
decanter and the best teapot. Shall we go?"
Chapter II
And now for a month or more Mahony had been in possession of a room that
was all his own. Did he retire into it and shut the door, he could make
sure of not being disturbed. Polly herself tapped before entering; and
he let her do so. Polly was dear; but dearer still was his long-coveted
privacy.
He knew, too, that she was happily employed; the fitting-up and
furnishing of the house was a job after her own heart. She had proved
both skilful and economical at it: thanks to her, they had used a bare
three-quarters of the sum allotted by Ocock for the purpose--and this
was well; for any number of unforeseen expenses had cropped up at the
last moment.
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