"Tell me about my new aunt," said Rodney.
Sylvie was glad to go on about Desire, about the wedding, about Hill-hope, and the plans for living there.
"I think it will be almost like heaven," she said. "It will be home and happiness; all that people look forward to for themselves. And yet, right alongside, there will be the work and the help. It will open right out into it, as heaven does into earth. Mr. Kirkbright is a grand man."
"Yes. He's one of the ten-talent people. But I suppose we can all do something. It is good to have some little one-horse teams for the light jobs."
"I never could be Desire," said Sylvie. "But I am glad, to work with her. I am glad to live one of the little lives."
There would always be a boy and girl simpleness between these two, and in their taking of the world together. And that is good for the world, as well. It cannot be all made of mountains. If all were high and grand, it would be as if nothing were. Heaven itself is not built like that.
"There goes some of Uncle Christopher's stuff, I suppose," said Rodney, a while afterward, as they came to the top of a long ascent. He pointed to a great loaded wain that stood with its three powerful horses on the crest of a forward hill. It was piled high up with tiling and drain-pipe, packed with straw. The long cylinders showed their round mouths behind, like the mouths of cannon.
"A nice cargo for these hills, I should think."
"They have brakes on the wheels, of course," said Sylvie. "And the horses are strong. That must be for the new houses. They will soon make all those things here. Mr. Kirkbright has large contracts for brick, already. He has been sending down specimens. They say the clay is of remarkably fine quality."
"We shall have to get by that thing, presently," said Rodney. "I hope the horse will take it well."