"I think Persians worship the sun," said Boodles doubtfully.
"Aw, bain't 'em dafty?" said Mary scornfully, though she too was a sun-worshipper without being aware of it.
"Her will be a canister tu," said Peter lugubriously.
"What be that?" asked Mary, who did not profess to know things.
"Her will et she, and then mebbe her will come on and et we," explained Peter, with needless apprehension, as the most ravenous cannibal would certainly have turned vegetarian before feasting upon him.
Boodles was always rude enough to correct Peter's most obvious errors, though he was so much older than herself, and she did so then, with the usual result that he went away muttering for his dictionary. He looked up cannon-ball, and of course discovered that he had been quite right and she was hopelessly in the wrong. Then he looked up canister, and found that it was a box for holding tea; and when he turned to tea he discovered it was sometimes made of beef, and beef was meat, and meat is what human beings are composed of; and canister was, therefore, a box for containing meat. He had been perfectly right, and the presumption of young maids was intolerable.
When Boodles got back to the village she saw the people standing about the street in groups as if they were expecting some one of importance to pass that way. She looked about but could see nothing; the people were almost silent; they did not laugh and spoke only in whispers. She felt as if some calamity was impending, so she hurried indoors and kept away from the windows, as it was rather a bright day for her and she did not want it spoilt; but presently a rumbling sound made her look out, and soon she was shuddering. A black closed vehicle, like a hearse, passed, drawn by two horses; and white-faced grey-haired Annie was seated beside the driver; and then Boodles knew what the people were standing about for. It was to see the vehicle go through on its way down to the workhouse infirmary. Boodles went very white, drew back, and hid her face in her hands. She thought Annie had turned her head and seen her at the window.
"Those flames will haunt me all my life," she whispered. "I shall see them jumping about my bed, and hear them roaring—but it wasn't my fault. He must have been a brute. How awful it would have been for me if he had died there."
Had she known all the evil that Pendoggat had done she would have felt less guilty and less sorry. She could only comfort herself with the knowledge that it had been Annie rather than herself who had started those terrible and uncontrollable flames. She would not be troubled with either of them again, apart from memory, for the workhouse had received them; one would remain there, crippled and blind, the other would doubtless go on into the world, and try to earn a livelihood for a few years before returning there again in the twilight of her days.
That night there was moonlight but no wind, and Boodles awoke in horror, fancying she heard for the second time that rumbling beneath her window, and screamed when she found and felt her body enveloped in flames. She sprang up to discover that she had been frightened by her own glowing hair. She was so sleepy before tumbling into bed that she had neglected to plait it, and it was all over the sheets like fire. "I shall always get these horrors while I am alone," she cried; and then she thought again of the wonderful letter, and the foreign girl with the amazing name whom she was to meet at the gate of the wood on Friday morning, and an intense longing for that strange girl came over her, and she cried aloud to the pale and equally lonely moon: "I hope she is nice. I will pray for her to be nice. The very first thing I shall ask her will be if I may sleep with her."