'You've got freckles on your nose,' she announced at length to Lilian. 'And she's torn her dress!' with an eye on Peggy. 'What a lot that boy eats! Nurse says it's very rude to fill your mouth so full!' pointing a severe finger at Bobby, which so convulsed him that he nearly choked.
'Perhaps you would like some cake now,' said Lilian, politely passing the basket to the stranger.
'Thank you. I'll take two pieces, because Isabella would like one. I think I had better be going home now. Good-bye. I'll call again another day;' and the young lady crammed one piece of cake into a diminutive pocket, and, munching the other, strolled away up the glen, with the luckless Isabella head downwards under her arm.
'I hope she'll be all right; she's such a dot to wander about alone!' said Lilian anxiously, peering through the trees, and much relieved at seeing a tall figure in a brown velvet jacket catch up Miss Wilkins and bear her off upon his shoulder. 'I suppose they're staying at Brown's farm. I know they sometimes let rooms during the summer.'
'She's a queer young customer, at any rate. I feel quite ill with laughing,' said Bobby, swallowing down his fifth cup of tea and flinging his crumbs for the robins.
'Let's clear up, then. Suppose, instead of going straight down by the village, we walk up through the woods to Pengarth, and buy the bread there. We can leave our things here, under the tree, till we come back,' said Peggy, hastily swilling the teacups in the stream and packing them up in the basket.
The others readily agreed, and they set off for a glorious scramble up the steep hillside. The path was so narrow that in places they could scarcely push through the thick, overhanging bushes and the trailing brambles, where the blackberries were already turning red, and showing a fine promise for the autumn. The trees were covered with nuts, which Bobby cracked with persistent hope, and perpetual disappointment when he found them all yet empty of kernels.
They crossed the stream by a bridge roughly made of two pine-trees flung from bank to bank, with a rope for a hand-rail, a somewhat dizzy foothold for anyone who minded the rushing water beneath, but infinitely to be preferred to stones and mortar in the children's opinion.
Up the steep bank they trudged, through fields of bracken higher than Bobby's head, getting out at last upon a white road that wound along the top of a cliff, with a stream roaring below, till round a sudden turn they came upon Pengarth, a prim little village, nestling in a hollow, and consisting of a short street and a big chapel and school-house.
There was a small general shop in Pengarth, where groceries and boots, apples and red-herrings, seemed all mixed up with yards of print and ribbon, penny ink-bottles, milk-cans, sun-bonnets, gingerbread, pear-drops, and bull's-eyes, presided over by a funny old woman in a black wig and horn spectacles, who seemed to find much enjoyment in gossiping with her customers; for the children had to wait quite a long time, while the chief points of last Sunday's sermon in chapel and the new dress of the minister's wife were freely discussed. At length the stout farmers' wives picked up their baskets and took their departure, and old Mrs. Ellis was able to give her undivided attention to Lilian's modest little voice, which had been striving to make itself heard, in a vain request for bread and tea-cakes for the last ten minutes.