Nothing seemed to depress her, and Granny was just as cheerful, so Hope said to Mrs. Cox, "It will be all right, Mrs. Cox. Aunt Alice says it will. We are going to do everything ourselves. We've got very poor, I don't know how, but Granny always says a beggar is happier than a king! And we shall love it all, I know we shall."
The day came when a cab drew up to the door, and the little girls with their arms full of parcels and baskets followed Granny out of the house in which they had spent most of their lives, and rolled away to the big, bustling station. The journey in the train was a delight to them, and when early in the afternoon they arrived at a quiet little station called Deepcombe, and were told by their aunt that they must get out, they looked round them with shining eyes noting every detail around them.
There was a shabby little cart waiting for them outside the station, and it was a tight fit to pack themselves and their luggage into it. A girl drove it, and she and Aunt Alice walked up all the hills. It seemed as if the road was never going to end, but the children had plenty to see as they went along. Lambs in the meadows; primroses on the banks, and pretty thatched cottages and farmhouses standing back from the road.
Charity was loud in admiration and wonder, Hope asked questions about everything. Little Faith was the silent one, she looked up into the blue sky and across the green fields with a dreamy smile upon her small white face.
Granny bent down to her once: "Are you tired, darling?"
Faith's back ached, but she never acknowledged it. She only smiled up at her grandmother. "It's like heaven, I should think!" was all she said.
Granny put her arm round her. Faith was very delicate, and she was continually in her grandmother's thoughts. Granny often said to Aunt Alice that Faith lived at Heaven's gates, and she was afraid that any day she might slip inside them.
At last they reached the Cottage. It had a white gate which had been freshly painted, and the door stood open; and kind Mrs. Horn had lighted a fire, and put a kettle on to boil and was standing outside the door, ready to welcome them.
The little girls tumbled over each other in their excitement to get inside. It seemed at first like a doll's house to them; the stairs were steep and narrow, and the rooms low, and the windows very small, but they loved the quaint cupboards; and then they ran out into the garden and orchard, and visited the well and picked some primroses, and whilst Granny and Aunt Alice were seeing to the luggage being carried in, their tongues wagged fast.
"It's all beautiful," said Charity, "just like the cottages in story books; and I hope we'll never go back to London again in our lives!"