The sports led them to the great home-field on the opposite
slope of the ridge from our own. The new farm-buildings were on the
level ground at the bottom to the right, where the declivity was
much more gradual than to the left, which was very steep, and ended
in furze bushes and low copsewood. It was voted a splendid place
for hide-and-seek, and the game was soon in such full career that
Ellen, who had had quite running enough, could fall out of it, and
with her, the other two elder girls. Emily felt Fanny Reynolds'
presence a sort of protection, 'little guessing what she was up to,'
to use her own expression. Perhaps the girl had not earlier made
out who Emily was, or she had been too much absorbed in her cares;
but, as the three sat resting on a stump overlooking the hill, she
was prompted by the singular inopportuneness of precocious fourteen
to observe, 'I ought to have congratulated you, Miss Winslow.'
Emily gabbled out, 'Thank you, never mind,' hoping thus to put a
stop to whatever might be coming; but there was no such good
fortune. 'We saw it in the paper. It is your brother, isn't it?'
'What?' asked unsuspicious Ellen, thinking, no doubt, of some fresh
glory to Griffith.
And before Emily could utter a word, if there were any she could
have uttered, out it came. 'The marriage--John Griffith Winslow,
Esquire, eldest son of John Edward Winslow of Chantry House, to
Selina, relict of Sir Henry Peacock and daughter of George Clarkson,
Esquire, Q.
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