The two women shook hands.
"Now are you sure we're not a bother to you?" said Mrs. Morel. "I know what a farming life is."
"Oh, no! We're only too thankful to see a new face, it's so lost up here."
"I suppose so," said Mrs. Morel.
They were taken through into the parlour—a long, low room, with a great bunch of guelder-roses in the fire-place. There the women talked, whilst Paul went out to survey the land. He was in the garden smelling the gillivers and looking at the plants, when the girl came out quickly to the heap of coal which stood by the fence.
"I suppose these are cabbage-roses?" he said to her, pointing to the bushes along the fence.
She looked at him with startled, big brown eyes.
"I suppose they are cabbage-roses when they come out?" he said.
"I don't know," she faltered. "They're white with pink middles."