After the short afternoon service, Sydney waited to exercise her
choir once more in their musical duties; but Babie, hearing there was
to be no rehearsal of the flower-strewing, declared she had enough of
classes at home, and should take Lina for a stroll on the sunny
terrace among the crocuses, where Fordham joined them till warned
that the sun was getting low.
One there was who would have been glad of an invitation to join in
the practice, but who did not receive one. John lingered with Allen
about the gardens till the latter disposed of himself on a seat with
a cigar beyond the public gaze. Then saying something about seeing
whether the stream promised well for fishing, John betook himself to
the bank of the river, one of the many Avons, probably with a notion
that by the merest accident he might be within distance at the break-
up of the choir practice.
He was sauntering with would-be indifference towards the foot-bridge
that shortened the walk to the Church, but he was still more than one
hundred yards from it, when on the opposite side he beheld Sydney
herself. She was on the very verge of the stream, below the steep,
slippery clay bank, clinging hard with one hand to the bared root of
a willow stump, and with the other striving to uphold the head and
shoulder of a child, the rest of whose person was in the water.
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