E Phillips Oppenheim

The New Tenant E Phillips Oppenheim

Thurwell Court, by Thurwell-on-the-Sea, lay bathed in the quiet freshness of an earlymorning. The dewdrops were still sparkling upon the terraced lawns like little globules offlashing silver, and the tumult of noisy songsters from the thick shrubberies alone brokethe sweet silence. The peacocks strutting about the grey stone balcony and perched uponthe worn balustrade were in deshabille, not being accustomed to display their splendors toan empty paradise, and the few fat blackbirds who were hopping about on the lawn did soin a desultory manner, as though they were only half awake and had turned out underprotest. Stillness reigned everywhere, but it was the sweet hush of slowly awakening dayrather than the drowsy, languorous quiet of exhausted afternoon. With one's eyes shut onecould tell that the pulse of day was only just beginning to beat. The pure atmosphere wasbuoyant with the vigorous promise of morning, and gently laden with the mingledperfumes of slowly opening flowers. There was life in the breathless air.