Page:Lolly Willowes - 1926.djvu/139

 As she reached the village she saw a group of women standing by the milestone. They were silent and abstracted as usual. When she greeted them they returned her greeting, but they said nothing among themselves. After she had gone by they turned as of one accord and began to walk up the field path towards the wood. They were going to gather fuel, she supposed. To-night their demeanour did not strike her as odd. She felt at one with them, an inhabitant like themselves, and she would gladly have gone with them up towards the wood. If they were different from other people, why shouldn't they be! They saw little of the world. Great Mop stood by itself at the head of the valley, five miles from the main road, and cut off by the hills from the other villages. It had a name for being different from other places. The man who had driven Laura home from The Reason Why had said: "It's not often that a wagonette is seen at Great Mop. It's an out-of-the-way place, if ever there was one. There's not such another village in Buckinghamshire for out-of-the-way-ness. Well may it be called Great Mop, for there's never a Little Mop that I've heard of."