"Oh! they are all well there," answered the girl, panting and fanning herself with her sun-bonnet, "except the white calf, and he is better."
"There's hot it is!" said Fani, taking up her basket of groceries.
"Oh! 'tis hot!" said the girl, "but there's a lovely wind from the sea."
"What are you wanting to-day, Morva?" said Jos.
"A ball of red worsted for Ann, and an ounce of 'bacco for 'n'wncwl
Ebben, and oh! a ha'porth of sweets for Tudor."
The dog wagged his tail approvingly as Jos reached down from the shelf a bottle of pink lollipops, for, though a wild country dog, he had depraved tastes in the matter of sweets.
"There's serious you all look! what's the matter with you?" said the girl, looking smilingly round.
"Nothing is the matter as I know," said Fani, "only there's always plenty of trouble flying about. We can't be all so free from care as you, always laughing or singing or something."
"Indeed I wish we could," said Madlen, a pale girl who was bending over a box of knitting pins, looking round curiously and rather sadly; "I wish the whole world could be like you, Morva."
Morva snatched the girl's listless hand in her own warm firm grasp, and pressed it sympathetically, for she knew Madlen's secret sorrow.