Explore "The Indian Bangle" by Fergus Hume on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When Mallow returned to Casterwell he found the village keeping high holiday in honour of Olive's marriage. The streets and houses were gay with flowers and flags. Under the arches of green boughs, festooned with many coloured blossoms, the people moved about gazing -- not without admiration, it must be confessed -- at their own handiwork. The same profuse hospitality, which had distinguished the coming-of-age of the Lady of the Manor, was repeated on a still larger scale. The bells of St. Augustine's were clamorous in the old tower; the sleepy old churchyard was for the nonce alive with voices, and the sun, in sympathetic mood at so brave a sight, was shining with all his splendour. But the idol does not ever rejoice with the worshippers, and she was the most miserable girl in the whole village.
Laurence was perhaps scarcely less so. He had not advised Aldean of his return, but had come from Reading in the hired fly. Dusty and battered, it contrasted discordantly with the spruceness and gaiety of the street; and Mallow, seated far back in it, his cap drawn over his eyes, winced more than once as the full meaning of it all forced itself upon him.