"All very well for you," said Mrs. Boxall; "but what is to become of me? My love-making was over long ago, and I want to see what I'm about now. Ah! young people, your time will come next. Make hay while the sun shines."
"While the candle's out, you mean, grannie," said Tom, stealing a kiss from Lucy.
"I hear more than you think for," said the cheery old woman. "I'll give you just five minutes' grace, and then I mean to have my own way. I am not so fond of darkness, I can tell you."
"How close it is!" said Lucy. "Will you open the window a little wider, Tom. Mind the flowers."
She came near the window, which looked down on the little stony desert of Guild Court, and sank into a high-backed chair that stood beside it.
"I can hardly drag one foot after another," she said, "I feel so oppressed and weary."
"And I," said Tom, who had taken his place behind her, leaning on the back of her chair, "am as happy as if I were in Paradise."
"There must be thunder in the air," said Lucy. "I fancy I smell the lightning already. Oh, dear!"
"Are you afraid of lightning, then?" asked Thomas.
"I do not think I am exactly; but it shakes me so! I can't explain what I mean. It affects me like a false tone on the violin. No, that's not it. I can't tell what it is like."