[Happy Pollyooly by Edgar Jepson]@TWC D-Link bookHappy Pollyooly CHAPTER VI 9/26
Searching the wood like a questing hound had given him also a fine appetite. It was soon after two o'clock that Pollyooly made the acquaintance of the boy Edward, or the boy Edward made the acquaintance of Pollyooly. It is difficult to be sure how these things happened.
But both of them were lonely; Pollyooly was of far too simple and direct a nature to be much hampered by the cold conventions of a sophisticated civilisation; and Edward was but ten. For all his extreme youth, he was an agreeable companion; and so it came about that Pollyooly, who had meant to return to the house at three o'clock, was detained by Edward and the sea till half-past four. She was not loth to be detained; she was indeed pleased to be giving the duchess her full measure of hours, and the lawyer and detective a really good run for their money. But as a matter of fact they did no running at all that afternoon.
At three o'clock the replete detective returned with the lunch of the raging lawyer.
From half-past three till four they prowled gently about the wood; at four they returned to the garden and sat on a bench in the garden, confident that their quarry must very soon return for food. At four o'clock a flaming Eglantine came out of the house and accused them furiously of having murdered Lady Marion Ricksborough in the wood. It took them nearly twenty minutes to persuade her that they had not. They found it hard work; and doubted even then that they had wholly succeeded. At half-past four Pollyooly said good-bye to the regretful Edward at the end of the High Street, whither he had accompanied her.
She did not hurry up the hill, but as she went picked flowers to adorn the Honourable John Ruffin's chambers.
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