A couple of girls had just reached the gate, and were pacing slowly up the path between the glowing flower-beds: as they came, they pointed out eagerly to one another old favourites they could recognize among the cared-for luxuriance of the borders.
“See!” said the sweet, clear voice of Frances, “isn’t that a splendid clump of southernwood? And those deep purple pansies—I love them!”
Jim caught his breath sharply. If Frances could “love” anything about Rowdon!
“What darling snapdragons—white and yellow and red!”
“And those briar roses—aren’t they late?”
The girls bent low to enjoy the varied fragrance. Jim felt something in his throat, and for a moment saw the pretty girlish figures through a mist. A sudden access of joy filled his heart. Could it be that his home was to know the familiar presence of such as these? Could anything he had to offer be worthy of their soft eyes and dainty hands? He gazed, in a happiness he could not have explained, at the gracious picture before him. Only a pair of charming English lassies; but for simple Jim they were an inspiration to love all that was highest, purest, worthiest.
Florry Fane lifted her head, and caught sight of Frances’s “blacksmith-brother”. Florry did not keep her intellect for book-studies, and she called on it now to help the situation.
“Hallo!” she exclaimed merrily, “there’s Jim! I shall run and ask him to tell me the name of that pretty blue flower!”
She hurried on, and before Frances could overtake her had gained the porch, and held out her hand to Jim, who stood waiting there.
“Good-morning, Mr. Morland!” said Florry, in gay greeting; “we’ve come to make ourselves tremendously useful. We’ve great big aprons in this bag, and Austin has lent us a hammer and a packet of nails. We mean business, you see.”