Then she removed her hair-pins, and, letting down a
shower of flaxen hair, commenced her winding pilgrimage among the old
gray stones. There is a vein of superstition in the most modern of
minds, and she was probably following a custom that had come down the
ages from the days when our primitive ancestresses clothed themselves in
skins and twisted their prehistoric locks with pins of mammoth ivory.
In and out and in and out, with Ingred, like an attendant priestess,
behind her, she performed the necessary itinerary, and laid her floral
offering upon what may have been the remains of a neolithic altar. The
pool below was dark and boggy and brown with peat. She took a good-sized
pebble, and flung it into the middle with a terrific splash. Ingred,
giggling nervously, counted the bubbles.
"A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I--It's 'I,' Queenie! No, there's another! It's
'J'! It's going to be 'J,' old sport! Aren't you thrilled? Oh, I say!
Whoever on earth is that?"
Following the direction of her sister's eyes, Quenrede looked through a
veil of wind-blown hair, to see, standing among the stones, a stranger
of the opposite sex, garbed in tweed knickers and leather gaiters. One
glance was enough. The next second she turned, and beat a hurried and
ignominious retreat to the sheltered side of the green mound. Ingred,
panting in the rear, followed her to cover.
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