“I hope you won’t find yourself dull, my dear,” said Mrs Warren, as she offered tea and a new-laid egg to her visitor. “It’s quiet here, no doubt, but we shall have Bessie home come harvest, and Gracie Elton, the gardener’s daughter, is a nice girl that you could go with now and then.”
“Oh, I ain’t the sort that gets dull,” said Florence; “leastways, not when things are new. Most things are dull you have to do every day constant.”
“I dare say,” said Mrs Warren, “that your own home may be a little gloomy sometimes for young folks.”
“Oh, it’s very cheerful in the cemetery,” said Florence, “and there’s a deal going on with funerals and folks coming to walk there on Sundays; but I was getting tired of staying at home. I think I’d have gone back to Mrs Lee if she’d have took me.”
She spoke in a voice of complete unconcern, and presently asked if she might go and look round outside.
Mrs Warren agreed, and Florence stepped out on to the short smooth turf and looked about her.
The sun was getting low, and threw long golden shafts of light under the trees across the grass; above the waving branches the sky was blue and still.
Florence was an observant girl, who walked the world with her eyes open, and she was aware that she had never seen anything so pretty as this before.
“’Tis like a picture,” she said to herself. Presently a pony chair came up one of the green alleys, drawn by a little grey pony and led by a pretty fair-haired boy, younger and smaller than herself. A young man was lying back in the chair, and Florence stood staring in much curiosity as the boy led the pony up to the cottage and Mrs Warren came out curtseying.
“Here’s Mr Edgar,” she whispered. “You were best to go in, Florence.”