“You know the road that leads to the mill,” said Mary Jay.
“Yes,” said Lucy.
“And do you remember a guide-post, at the foot of a hill, fastened to a great tree?”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “with bridge and two mills written on it.”
“Two miles,” said Mary Jay, “not mills. It says that to the bridge it is two miles. Did you think it was mills?”
“Yes,” replied Lucy; “I thought it meant that that road led to a place where there was a bridge and two mills.”
“O no,” said Mary Jay, laughing. “It means that it is two miles to the bridge. The house that I live in, is about a half a mile along that road.”
As Mary Jay said this, they reached the place where the road to the house, which Lucy lived in, turned away from the road which Mary Jay was to take. So Lucy bade her good bye; and Mary Jay, after resting a moment upon her crutch, looking at Lucy as she walked along, turned away into her own road, and Lucy saw her no more.
That evening, however, Lucy told her mother what Mary Jay had said. Her mother inquired about it, and found that it was true that the school where Lucy had been admitted was to be closed in a few weeks, because the family where it had been kept were going away, and it wasn’t to be opened again until the next spring. But there were to be three more months of pleasant weather; and so Lucy’s mother went to see Mary Jay, and made an arrangement with her to take Lucy for a scholar.
Accordingly, a few days after this, Lucy set off, one morning, with Royal to guide her, to go to Mary Jay’s house, to begin at her new school. They walked along very pleasantly together, Royal carrying Lucy’s slate and book for her, in a green satchel. When they came to the guide-board, Lucy stopped to examine it more particularly. She found it was miles, not mills.