CHAPTER IX
"FAITHFUL AND TRUE"
Sally wasn't at all anxious to see Philip, though he came charioted in the smartest of roadsters and splendidly appointed himself. Little Miss Phoebe, the postmistress, had just stopped her wrenlike chirping long enough to shake her head for the ninetieth time, with an eloquent pity that reminded one of lavender and the infinite pathos of transient things, and the girl nodded to Philip as to a passer-by whom one remembers having seen somewhere, and stood on the top post-office step, gazing downhill over the roofs and the little grove of masts to the sea beyond, out of whose silence no message, no sign had come.
"Oh, hasn't he a distinguished air!" whispered Stella Appleby, a plump, fair-sized matrimonial filly, with prettyish blond hair and blue eyes, Sally's chum, not from any particular affinity, but purely from geographical reasons. She had the air of always scanning the horizon for trousered craft, also a predisposition to giggles, all harmless enough, signifying nothing more than that she was preparing for her trade in life, quite as the boy destined to become an electrical engineer fools with toy batteries and bells. If you listened prophetically you could hear those giggles translated
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