"I be going hence," said Merrylips, and blinked fast. "I be going to mine old godmother—she that sent me a vild mammet—and I know I'll hate her fairly! Oh, tell me, dear Munn, where might her house of Larkland be? Is't far from Walsover?"
"A long distance," said Munn; and his face was troubled for the little girl he loved.
"Is't farther than Winchester?" Merrylips urged in a voice that to his ears seemed near to breaking.
He was an honest lad, this Munn; and though he did not like to say it, spoke the truth.
"Ay, dear heart," he said, "'tis farther even than Winchester thou wilt go, but yet—"
Merrylips tossed back her flyaway hair.
"Tell that unto Flip!" she cried. "He hath been but unto Winchester, and now I'll go farther than Winchester! I'll journey farther than Master Flip, though he be a lad and I but a wench!"
She lifted a stanch little face to her brother, and smiled upon him, undismayed.
CHAPTER III
OUT IN THE WORLD