"I do hope I am not late for tea," she said. "I have had such a lovely time!"
"I see that," said Rachel, smiling involuntarily as her eyes fell on the bright glowing face. "Get off your things, and come away."
"And look, I found a treasure," said Mona re-entering, "some Bloody Cranesbill."
"Eh? Is that what you call it? It's a queer-like name. It's gey common about here. You'll find plenty of it by the roadside among the fields."
"Really? Or do you mean the Meadow Cranesbill? It is very like this, but purpler, and it has two flowers on each stalk instead of one."
As Rachel belonged to that large section of the community which would be wholly at a loss for a reply if asked whether a primrose and a buttercup had four petals or six, she remained discreetly silent.
But, curiously enough, Mona's childlike and unaffected delight in the sea and the flowers set her cousin more nearly at ease than anything had done yet.
"After all," she thought, "it's a great thing for a town-bred girl to stay in the country for a change, and with her own flesh and blood too. She must have been dull enough, poor thing, alone in London."
"When you want to get rid of me for a whole day," said Mona presently, "I mean to go off on a botanising excursion round the coast. I am sure there must be lots of treasures blushing unseen."
"We'll do something better than that," said Rachel, after a moment's hesitation as to whether the occasion were worthy of a trump-card. "Some fine day, if we are spared, we'll take the coach to St Rules, and see all the sights. There's a shop in South Street where we can get pies and lemonade, and we'll have an egg to our tea when we come back."