She stayed a long time at the gate talking to Uncle Joshua, and Lilac, watching them through the window, felt little doubt that they were talking of her. When her mother came in, and was quite kind and gentle, and behaved just as usual, she felt still more sure that it was Uncle Joshua’s wonderful wisdom that had done it all. But if she could have heard the conversation she would have been surprised, for they dwelt entirely on the cobbler’s rheumatics and the chances of rain, and said no word of either Lilac or her fringe. Mrs White had had time to repent of her harsh words, and when the hours went by, and Lilac did not come back, she had pictured her receiving comfort and encouragement from the Greenways—the very people she wished her to avoid. Now she had driven her to them. “I could bite my tongue out for talking so foolish,” she said to herself as she ran out to the gate, over and over again. When at last she saw the two well-known figures approaching, she could only just restrain herself from rushing out to meet Lilac and covering her with kisses. The relief was almost too great to bear.
In her own home, therefore, Lilac heard nothing further on the unlucky subject. But this was not by any means the case in the village, where nothing was too small to be important. The fact of the Widow White’s Lilac wearing a fringe was quite enough to talk of, and more than enough to stare at, for it was something new. Unfortunately everyone knew Lilac, and Lilac knew everyone, so there was no escape. Her acquaintances would draw up in front of her and gaze steadily for an instant, after which the same remarks always came:
“My! you have altered yerself. I shouldn’t never have known you, I do declare! And so you didn’t have yer picter done after all?”
Lilac wished she could hide somewhere until her hair had grown long again. And worst of all, when Mrs Leigh next saw her in school, she looked quite startled and said:
“I’m so sorry you’ve cut your hair, Lilac; it looked much nicer before.”
It was the same thing over and over again, no one approved the change but Agnetta, and Lilac’s faith in her cousin was by this time a little bit shaken. She should not be so ready, she thought, the next time to believe that Agnetta must know best. One drop of comfort in all this was that the artist gentleman no longer sat painting at the bottom of the hill. He had packed up all his canvases and brushes and gone off to the station, so that Lilac saw him no more. She was very glad of this, for she felt that it would have been almost impossible to pass him every day and to see his keen disapproving glance fixed upon her. Slowly the picture that was to have been painted was forgotten, and Lilac White’s fringe became a thing of custom. There were more important matters near at hand; May Day was approaching, an event of interest and excitement to both young and old.