Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/325

Rh As we went up the orchard side we saw three wide displays of coloured pieces of pots arranged at the foot of three trees.

“Look,” said Emily, “those are the children’s houses. You don’t know how our Mollie gets all Sam’s pretty bits—she is a cajoling hussy!”

The two looked at each other again, smiling. Up on the pond-side, in the full glitter of light, we looked round where the blades of clustering corn were softly healing the red bosom of the hill. The larks were overhead among the sunbeams. We straggled away across the grass. The field was all afroth with cowslips, a yellow, glittering, shaking froth on the still green of the grass. We trailed our shadows across the fields, extinguishing the sunshine on the flowers as we went. The air was tingling with the scent of blossoms.

“Look at the cowslips, all shaking with laughter,” said Emily, and she tossed back her head, and her dark eyes sparkled among the flow of gauze. Lettie was on in front, flitting darkly across the field, bending over the flowers, stooping to the earth like a sable Persephone come into freedom. George had left her at a little distance, hunting for something in the grass. He stopped, and remained standing in one place.

Gradually, as if unconsciously, she drew near to him, and when she lifted her head, after stooping to pick some chimney-sweeps, little grass flowers, she laughed with a slight surprise to see him so near.

“Ah!” she said. “I thought I was all alone in the world—such a splendid world—it was so nice.”