the Night Watch

when the other girls came in. She saw them undressing in the orange light of the vanished sun, which flushed their forms with its colour; she dozed again, but she was reawakened by their voices, and quietly turned her eyes towards them. ¡¡¡¡Neither of her three chamber-companions had got into bed. They were standing in a group, in their nightgowns, barefooted, at the window, the last red rays of the west still warming their faces and necks, and the walls around them. All were watching somebody in the garden with deep interest, their three faces close together: a jovial and round one, a pale one with dark hair and a fair one whose tresses were auburn. ¡¡¡¡`Don't push! You can see as well as I,' said Retty, the auburn-haired and youngest girl, without removing her eyes from the window. ¡¡¡¡`'Tis no use for you to be in love with him any more than me, Retty Priddle,' said jolly-faced Marian, the eldest, silly. `His thoughts be of other cheeks than thine!'