Read It Happened One Autumn for Free Online Page A

Westcliff.”
    As always, when a conversation turned to the subject of Westcliff, Lillian felt thoroughly provoked, not unlike the way she had felt in childhood when her brothers had tossed her favorite doll over her head, back and forth between them, while she cried for them to give it back to her. Why any mention of the earl should affect her this way was a question for which there was no answer. She dismissed Daisy’s remark with an irritable shrug of her shoulders.
    As they drew closer to the house, they heard a few happy yelps in the distance, followed by some youthful cheers that sounded like those of children playing. “What is that?” Lillian asked, glancing in the direction of the stables.
    “I don’t know, but it sounds as if someone is having an awfully good time. Let’s go see.”

    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    “We don’t have long,” Lillian warned. “If Mother discovers that we’re gone—”
    “We’ll hurry. Oh, please, Lillian!”
    As they hesitated, a few more hoots and shouts of laughter floated from the direction of the stable yard, offering such a contrast to the peaceful scenery around them that Lillian’s curiosity got the better of her.
    She grinned recklessly at Daisy. “I’ll race you there,” she said, and took off at a dead run.
    Daisy hiked up her skirts and tore after her. Although Daisy’s legs were far shorter than Lillian’s, she was as light and agile as an elf, and she had nearly come even with Lillian by the time they had reached the stable yard. Puffing lightly from the effort of running up a long incline, Lillian rounded the outside of a neatly fenced paddock, and saw a group of five boys, varying in ages between twelve and sixteen, playing in the small field just beyond. Their attire identified them as stable boys. Their boots had been discarded beside the paddock, and they were running barefoot.
    “Do yousee?” Daisy asked eagerly.
    Glancing over the group, Lillian saw one of them brandishing a long willow bat in the air, and she laughed in delight. “They’re playing rounders!”
    Although the game, consisting of a bat, a ball, and four sanctuary bases arranged in a diamond pattern, was popular in both America and England, it had reached a level of obsessive interest in New York.
    Boys and girls of all classes played the game, and Lillian longingly remembered many a picnic followed by an afternoon of rounders. Warm nostalgia filled her as she watched a stable boy round the bases. It was clear that the field was often used for this purpose, as the sancutary posts had been hammered deeply into the ground, and the areas between them had been trampled to form grass-free lanes of dirt.
    Lillian recognized one of the players as the lad who had loaned her the rounders bat for the wall-flowers’
    ill-fated game two months earlier.
    “Do you think they would let us play?” Daisy asked hopefully. “Just for a few minutes?”
    “I don’t see why not. That red-haired boy—he was the one who let us borrow the bat before. I think his name is Arthur…”
    At that moment a low, fast pitch streaked toward the batter, who swung in a short, expert arc. The flat side of the bat connected solidly with the leather ball, and it came hurtling toward them in a bouncing drive that was referred to as a “hopper” back in New York. Running forward, Lillian scooped up the ball in her bare hands and fielded it expertly, throwing it to the boy who stood at the first sanctuary post. He caught it reflexively, staring at her with surprise. As the other boys noticed the pair of young women who stood beside the paddock, they all paused uncertainly.
    Lillian strode forward, her gaze finding the red-haired boy. “Arthur? Do you remember me? I was here in June—you loaned us the bat.”
    The boy’s puzzled expression cleared. “Oh yes, Miss… Miss…”
    “Bowman.” Lillian gestured casually to Daisy. “And this is my sister. We were