Her eyes drank, devoured it.—Cattle knee-deep in green pasture, belly-deep in green water-flags by standing pools; cattle resting their long flanks while they chewed the cud; cattle whisking their tails amid the meadow-sweet, under hedges sprawled over with wild rose and honeysuckle.—White flocks in the lengthening shade of elms; wood and copse; silver river and canal glancing between alders, hawthorns, pollard willows; lichened bridges of flint and brick; ancient cottages, thatched or red-tiled, timber-fronted, bulging out in friendliest fashion on the high road; the high road looping its way from village to village, still between hedges. Corona had never before set eyes on a real hedge in the course of her young life; but all this country—right away to the rounded chalk hills over which the heat shimmered—was parcelled out by hedges—hedges by the hundred—and such hedges!
"It's—it's like a garden," she stammered, turning around and meeting a question in Nurse Branscome's eyes. "It's all so lovely and tiny and bandboxy. However do they find the time for it?"
"Eh, it takes time," said Nurse Branscome, amused. "You'll find that's the main secret with us over here. But—disappointed, are you?"
"Oh, no—no—no!" the child assured her. "It's ten times lovelier than ever I 'spected—only," she added, cuddling down for another long gaze, "it's different—different in size."
"England's a little place," said Nurse Branscome. "In the colonies— I won't say anything about the States, for I've never seen them; but I've been to Australia in my time, and I expect with Canada it's much the same or more so—in the colonies everything's spread out; but home here, I heard Brother Copas say, if you want to feel how great anything is, you have to take it deep-ways, layer below layer."
Corona knit her small brow.
"But Windsor Castle is a mighty big place?" she said hopefully.
"Oh, yes!"
"Well, I'm glad of that anyway."
"But why, dear?"