“O, yes,—very kind. And I am sure you ought to say so to father and mother.”
Becky had jumped into the cart, and had her arms round Moss, and her head on his shoulder. Raising her head, and with her eyes filling as she spoke, she inquired anxiously how the new cottages went on, and when father and mother were to have a home of their own again. She owned, but did not wish her father and mother to hear of it, that she did not like being among such rough people as the farm servants. She did not like some of the behavior that she saw; and, still less, such talk as she was obliged to overhear. When would a cottage be ready for them?
“Why, the new cottages would soon be getting on now,” Allan said; but he didn’t know, nobody fancied the look of them. He saw them just after the foundations were laid; and the enclosed parts were like a clay-puddle. He did not see how they were ever to be improved; for the curse of wet seemed to be on them, as upon everything about the Station. Fleming’s cottage was the best he had seen, after all, if only it was twice as large. If anything could be done to make the new cottages what cottages should be, it would be done: for everybody agreed that the railway gentlemen desired to do the best for their people, and to set an example in that respect; but it was beyond anybody’s power to make wet clay as healthy as warm gravel. Unless they could go to work first to dry the soil, it seemed a hopeless sort of affair.
“But, I say, Becky,” pursued Allan, “you know about my garden—that father gave me a garden of my own.”
Becky’s head was turned quite away; and she did not look round, when she replied,
“Yes; I remember. How does your garden get on?”
There was something in her voice which made her brother lean over and look into her face; and, as he expected, tears were running down her cheeks.
“There now!” said he, whipping the back of the cart with his stick; “something must be done, if you can’t get on here.”
“O! I can get on. Be sure you don’t tell mother that I can’t get on, or anything about it.”
“You look healthy, to be sure.”