The Hurrying of Ludovic Anne Shirley was curled up on the window-seat of Theodora Dix 's sitting-room one Saturday evening , looking dreamily afar at some fair starland beyond the hills of sunset . Anne was visiting for a fortnight of her vacation at Echo Lodge , where Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Irving were spending the summer , and she often ran over to the old Dix homestead to chat for awhile with Theodora . They had had their chat out , on this particular evening , and Anne was giving herself over to the delight of building an air-castle . She leaned her shapely head , with its braided coronet of dark red hair , against the window-casing , and her gray eyes were like the moonlight gleam of shadowy pools . Then she saw Ludovic Speed coming down the lane . He was yet far from the house , for the Dix lane was a long one , but Ludovic could be recognized as far as he could be seen . No one else in Middle Grafton had such a tall , gently-stooping , placidly-moving figure . In every kink and turn of it there was an individuality all Ludovic 's own . Anne roused herself from her dreams , thinking it would only be tactful to take her departure . Ludovic was courting Theodora . Everyone in Grafton knew that , or , if anyone were in ignorance of the fact , it was not because he had not had time to find out . Ludovic had been coming down that lane to see Theodora , in the same ruminating , unhastening fashion , for fifteen years ! When Anne , who was slim and girlish and romantic , rose to go , Theodora , who was plump and middle-aged and practical , said , with a twinkle in her eye : `` There is n't any hurry , child . Sit down and have your call out . You 've seen Ludovic coming down the lane , and , I suppose , you think you 'll be a crowd . But you wo n't . Ludovic rather likes a third person around , and so do I . It spurs up the conversation as it were . When a man has been coming to see you straight along , twice a week for fifteen years , you get rather talked out by spells . '' Theodora never pretended to bashfulness where Ludovic was concerned .
She was not XXXXX all shy of referring to him and his dilatory courtship .
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