Her advent brought a sort of breathlessness to the two young men. Ned evaded it by saying prosaically, "You'll have to tie on your head with something, I expect."
"I have got something," replied Aura superbly, and out came the lace scarf. It was bewildering. All the more so when Mr. Sylvanus Smith, looking at her with that same wistful affection, said half to himself, "Your grandmother wore that, my dear, when she was married."
But there was no time for sentimentalities. Here was a young girl, instinct with vitality to her very finger tips, going out for her first ride on a motor, going out for her very first experience of the world.
"I have never been further than this before," she said, heaving a great sigh of content, as the car, turning almost at right angles, sped over a bridge and curved towards the further side of the estuary. "Everything now is new! Everything! I've never even seen the hills this shape before. And how strange our side of the valley looks. Who would believe that was Cwmfairnog? I don't believe I belong to it a bit."
She pointed to a pale blue shadow among the shining hills showing where the little valley sank to restful, sheltered peace.
"I'm sure you don't," echoed Ned joyously. "Only I don't quite know where we belong to--unless it is everywhere."
The "we" smote on Ted's ears disagreeably as he leant over from the back between them, while the _chauffeur_, honest man, sat immovable in his corner as if he saw and heard nothing.
"You belong to us at present," he said laughing; "so take care you don't smash us up, Ned--we can't afford to lose her."
She laughed back at him carelessly. That was exactly what she felt. She was having a splendid time with both of them.
It was a drive never to be forgotten. Down here by the sea the frost had slackened its hold, and in sheltered corners the grass was as green as at midsummer. A robin was singing its heart out on a bramble bough, where one pale flower showed rejoicing in the winter sunshine. It looked colder in the sky than it was on earth, for overhead a great white cloud drifted like an iceberg through a sea of palest blue--a frozen-looking, chilly blue.
"Is that Plas Afon? I'm so sorry!" exclaimed Aura, as a swift turn in the road brought them to a sheltered bay almost land-locked by a rocky promontory covered with trees. It needed but one glance at these to show you that here was art, not nature. But it was art mimicking Nature in her kindest moods and bringing together from the four corners of the earth the glories of eastern and western forests, of the south and of the north. A few gold leaves still lingered on the Spanish chestnuts, the blue of the noble pine formed a background for the golden-barked willow, the silver cedar threw out its long arms across a scarlet oak, and almost to the water's edge grew rare conifers and blossoming shrubs.