Chapter Four.
On the way to Thorpe.
“Please, we’re come,” said Cissy. “We’ve been a good while getting here, but we— Oh, it isn’t you!”
“What isn’t me?” said Rose, laughing—for people said me where it should have been I, then, as they do still. “I rather think it is me; don’t you?”
“Yes, but you are not she that spake to us on the road,” said Cissy. “Somebody told us to call here as we went down the lane, and her daughter should go home with us, and help us to carry the big jar. Perhaps you’re the daughter?”
“Well, I guess I am,” answered Rose. “Where’s home?”
“It’s at the further end of Thorpe.”
“All right. Come in and rest you, and I’ll fetch a sup of something to do you good, poor little white faces.”
Rose took a hand of each and led them forward.
“Mother, here be two bits of Maypoles,” said she, “for they be scarce fatter; and two handfuls of snow, for they be scarce rosier—that say you promised them that I should go home with them and bear their jar of meal.”