Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/76

 Miss Miranda said nothing of her journey except to thank Elizabeth most warmly and gratefully for saving the garden in her absence.

"You should hear Michael sing your praises," she said. "He has so little to say of any one that it is amazing to hear how he talks of you. He cannot make up his mind whether we have saved our season's crop through your resourcefulness or because last week he buried a luckpenny at the head of the garden. But I know what I think!"

They went out together to inspect the whole place, to wonder at the growth of the vegetables after the rain, and to admire the plumpness of the ducks and the white Leghorn chicks, hatched while Miss Miranda was away. Betsey noticed that her friend still looked worn and anxious and that the old trick of looking quickly over her shoulder when a step went past the gate, was not gone. But of her journey she still said nothing.

"I think," Miss Miranda remarked at last, "that it would be pleasant to walk over to the big house—or where the big house stood—and look at the flowers there. The peonies should be out by now. I was thinking of them to-day, of how cool and white they were and what banks of them should be blooming under the dining-room windows. The air feels close to-night, but there is nearly always a breeze