'Frosts kill all the flowers—that is why James does not like it coming; but it is the flowers out of doors that feel it most.'
'But,' said Roland, edging up to his aunt, 'there are no flowers to kill; there are only bare, dried-up trees and dark bushes. Mr. Bob told us they had all gone to sleep under the ground.'
'So they have, but it is frost and cold that has killed them off.'
'I don't like England,' said little Olive mournfully; and when she was comfortably tucked up in bed that night, she said sleepily, 'If I had a nice garden of flowers, I wouldn't leave them all out in the cold and dark to die, and I'll never live in England when I grow up, for winter is a dreadful thing!'
The children soon found out what frost and cold meant; but the novelty of the small icicles outside their windows, and the beauty of the hoar frost glittering on the trees and bushes in the sunshine, more than compensated for the uncomfortable experience of cold hands and feet.
They soon paid a visit to old Bob again, and this time he took them into the old-fashioned churchyard, which lay just outside the lodge gates on the other side of the road.
'This is my other garden,' he said gravely, 'for I gets so much from the rector every year for keeping the ground tidy.'
Roland and Olive looked round them with much interest.
Old Bob took them to a quiet corner soon, and pointed out five grassy mounds all in a row.