CHAPTER XXVI.
A PICNIC IN THE GLEN.
It is amazing how fast time flies when one is busy. At "Charity House" all were busy, and to all the winter passed with incredible swiftness.
To Amy each day seemed too short to accomplish half she desired, and each one held some new, fascinating interest in that study of life which so absorbed her.
"You're the funniest girl, Amy. Even the lengthening of the days, getting a little lighter in the mornings, week by week, so we can see the sun rise and such things, as we walk to work—I'd never think of it, 'cept for you."
"Now you do think of it, isn't it interesting?"
"Yes, I like it. Things seem to mean something, now I know you. Before, well—'pears like I didn't think at all; I just slid along and took no notice."
"But it's so wonderful. Everything is wonderful,—even the way the months have gone. Here it is spring, the bloodroot lying in a white drift along the brookside, and the yellow lilies opening their funny tooth-shaped petals everywhere in the woods. Yet only a minute ago, as it seems, the dead leaves were falling, and I was on my way for the first time to work in the mill. I belong there now, a part of it. I have almost forgotten how it used to be when I was so idle."
"Seems to me you could never have been idle, Amy. Anyway, you've got on splendid. The 'Supe' says he never had a girl go ahead so fast. Isn't it grand, though, to be out of the mill this lovely day? Saturday-half means ever so much more fun now than it used to do, and doesn't cost half so much money. Don't worry you half so much either, as it did to go shopping all the time. Say, Amy, I've about got Mis' Hackett paid up."
"I'm delighted; it must be wretched to feel one's self in debt, I think."