'Delighted to see you! Come in, and let Cicely give you some tea. They'll see to your luggage!'
He led in Nelly, and Bridget followed, glancing from side to side, with an eye shrewdly eager, an eye that took in and appraised all it saw. A cottage indeed! It had been built by Sir William's father, for his only sister, a maiden lady, to whom he was much attached. 'Aunt Sophy' had insisted on a house to herself, being a person of some ruggedness and eccentricity of character and averse to any sort of dependence on other people's ways and habits. But she had allowed her brother to build and furnish the cottage for her as lavishly as he pleased, and during his long widowhood she had been of much help to him in the management of the huge household at Carton Hall, and in the bringing up of his two children. After her death, the house had remained empty for some time, till, six months after the outbreak of war, Farrell had handed over the Hall to the War Office, and he and his sister had migrated to the smaller house.
Bridget was aware, as she followed her sister, of rooms small but numerous opening out on many sides, of long corridors with glistening teak floors, of windows open to a garden ablaze with roses. Sir William led them to what seemed a buzz of voices, and opened a door.
Cicely Farrell rose languidly from a table surrounded by laughing young men, and advanced to meet the newcomers. Nelly found herself shaking hands with the Captain Marsworth she had seen at Loughrigg Tarn, and being introduced by Sir William to various young officers, some in khaki, visitants from a neighbouring camp, and some from the Hall, in various forms of convalescent undress, grey flannel suits, khaki tunics with flannel 'slacks,' or full khaki, as the wearers pleased. The little lady in white had drawn all the male eyes upon her as she came in, and those who rapidly resumed their talk with Miss Farrell or each other, interrupted by the entrance of the newcomers, were no less aware of her than those who, with Farrell, devoted themselves to supply the two sisters with tea.
Nelly herself, extremely shy, but sustained somehow by the thought that she must hold her own in this new world, was soon deep in conversation with a charming youth, who owned a long, slightly lantern-jawed face and fair hair, moved on crutches with a slung knee, and took everything including his wound as 'funny.'