“I should be, too,” said Edwin.
“Would you?” she smiled.
“Yes. . . . You’ve made me hate Aunt Laura already.”
“You mustn’t feel like that, Eddie. She’s young, and she’s been spoilt. It isn’t all her fault, probably.”
“If it were any one but you I wouldn’t mind. But you’re so wonderful.” He loved to look into her eyes when she loved him.
II
After this they had wonderful times together. In the mornings Edwin would indulge his glorious idleness among the books of the dining-room shelves, and after middle-day dinner, when his father had gone back to the shop, he would set out with his mother up the lane under the tall elms and through the sloping field that led to the mill pond. They did not walk very far because she must not be over-tired; but the field was so crowded with wonders that they were tempted further. Cowslips steeped the meadows in their vinous perfume; and between the saplings of the hazel copse they saw the sheeted hyacinths gleaming like pools that mirror the sky in open places. Beyond the land of meadows and copses they came to a belt of the old forest, through which they could see up a broad green lane to the very shoulders of the hills: Pen Beacon heaving its fleece of black firs, and the domed head of Uffdown.
His mother would sigh a little when she saw the hills. In weather that threatened rain from the west they would seem so near, with their contour hard against the watery sky and the cloud shadows all prussian blue.
“Oh, I should love to be there, Edwin,” she would say.
“Can’t we walk there some day, dearest?”