“This is my brother Richard,” said Rachel, looking up from blowing the fire. “Richard, this is Miss Dunnock.”
The young man’s face broke into smiles at her name, and he held out his hand.
“I am very pleased to meet you,” said Anne, taking it. “Now I must be getting on. Good-bye, Rachel.”
“Please don’t go,” said the grocer’s son. “I have finished work for to-day; the light has changed, and I have been wanting to meet you. I want to ask you all about how your doorstep was ploughed up. I shall never meet anyone else to whom such a thing has happened, and I want to know what it felt like.”
Anne was too much taken aback by this to know what to answer, but just at that moment they were interrupted by Rachel’s saying that the tea was made.
Young Sotheby repeated his invitation, and Anne sat down on a block of stone which had once supported the corner of a haystack, feeling very foolish, shy, and ashamed of her shyness, but she was determined that she would not run away after what he had said. She had blushed crimson when he had spoken of Plough Monday, but it had pleased her to hear something spoken of openly about which so much must have been said behind her back.
“Yes. Our doorstep was ploughed up,” she said, and her voice sounded to the others as though she were angry. “Why does it interest you?”
“It was very wicked of the men to do it,” said Rachel suddenly. “And you ought not to speak of such a thing to Miss Dunnock, Richard.”
The grocer’s son laughed at his sister’s indignant interruption. “Rachel is a great friend of yours, Miss Dunnock. I shall have to apologize to her, but I hope I have not offended you also.”
“No. Not at all. I want to talk about it, Rachel,” she said, looking at the child. The little girl’s mouth was trembling.