"'There they are!' he said suddenly."
"The gipsies?" said Una. "Oh, Tom, do they live in that funny little house?"
"Yes," said Tom, "and when they want to go somewhere else they just pack up their hut—it all comes to piece somehow—and then go off in that cart. It must be awfully jolly to live like that."
"Yes, in the summer," Una agreed, "but not in the winter, Tom. Oh, no!—not in the cold, cold winter, when the snow is on the ground," and Una gave a little shiver at the thought.
"No," said Tom, "not in the winter, perhaps, and not when they haven't enough to eat, like these now. The woman said she'd only had half a loaf of bread to give her children all yesterday, and that is why mother sent them a great can of soup by Barnes this morning, and I'm taking them these things now, because they're going on to-morrow towards the hospital where the children's father is. Now, what are you going to do, Una? Are you coming too, or going to stay here?"
"I'll stay here," said Una, "if you can carry all the parcels."
"Yes, I can," said Tom. "I carried them all the way from the shop to where I met you in the wood."
Una piled the parcels carefully one on the top of the other in Tom's arms, then sat down on the mossy root of a tree, and watched him as he crossed the common towards the little brown hut among the gorse bushes.