"What does Miss Peasey say?" asked Pauline, who was in a state of the highest amusement, because deaf-and-dumb Graves was one of the villagers who lived under her particular patronage.
"Well, at first Miss Peasey was rather huffed, because she thought Graves was mocking her by pretending to be deaf. Now, however, she comes out and watches him at work and hopes that next Spring there'll be a little more variety in the garden."
The sunny, sparkling weather lasted for a few days after Christmas; and one morning Pauline, walking by herself on Wychford down, met Guy.
"I wondered if I should see you," he said.
"Did you expect to see me, then?"
"Well, I knew you often came here, and this morning I couldn't resist coming here myself."
Pauline felt a sudden impulse to run away; and yet most unaccountably the impulse led her into walking along with Guy at a brisk pace over the close-cropped glittering turf. Round them trotted Bob in eddies of endless motion.
"Listen," said Guy. "I'm sure I heard a lark singing."
They stopped, and Pauline thought that never was there so sweet a silence as here upon the summit of this green down. Guy's lark could not be heard. There was not even the faint wind that sighs across high country. There was nothing but gorse and turf and a turquoise sky floating on silver deeps and distances above the Winter landscape.
"When the gorse is out of bloom, kissing's out of fashion," he said, pointing to a golden spray.