Here she took the bright girl’s face between both her hands and kissed her on her lips.
“Oh, Florence!” she said. “Talk of you as penniless—you, with those eyes, that youth, that beauty and that true heart! Florence, darling; you are rich in great possessions!”
“I think I am,” said Florence, joyfully, “now that I have found a friend. Oh yes,” she added, “I am sure I am.”
It took but a short time to pack the different articles of Florence’s wardrobe into the neat trunks which were waiting to receive them. Susie herself went out to fetch a cab, and before lunch time Florence was installed at the Grange. The Colonel was delighted to see her, and received her with the same graceful old-fashioned courtesy he had done on Christmas Day. This was perhaps, if anything, slightly accentuated. He did not once allude to the subject of money, nor did he express any commiseration for Florence’s poverty. On the contrary, he expected her to be in an excellent humour, and took her about the garden showing her his favourite plants, and pointing out different mysterious little plots of ground which would, as he expressed it, “blossom like the rose” when the spring arrived.
“Ah,” he said, “it is a great mystery—a very, very great mystery, that of death and resurrection. All the seeds in the ground down there are apparently dead, and there is nothing as far as we can tell to call them into life again. Frost night after night, snow on the ground, biting cold rains, no growth, no movement—and yet the germ is safe within, folded in each of the little seeds; and when the right moment comes, it will begin to fructify, and there will come out the little tender plants—just the merest little shoots at first—which will grow together day by day; and then there will come the hardy plant, and then the bud, and then the blossom, and then again the seed; and that same must die in order to bring forth fresh life. It is all lovely and all true and like our own life, isn’t it, Florence?”
“Yes,” said Florence; “it does seem so.”
“You are lonely without your sister, my dear.”
“I am rather lonely,” said Florence. But it was not the thought of Brenda which was depressing her. She had got over her separation from her sister for the time being: besides, they could meet, and would meet, at any time. She was expecting Michael Reid and wondering if he would look in at the Arbuthnots’. So far he had not come, nor had his name been alluded to.
While Florence and the old Colonel were pottering about the garden, out came Susie with her red and yet sunshiny face.
“Now,” she said, “you two have talked long enough, and I want Florence. Florence, we are going to do a lot of preserving this afternoon. I mean to make more marmalade than I have ever made before, and it is a tremendous business; but I have managed to get a hundred Seville oranges at quite a moderate price at Johnson’s. We’ll begin our preparations as soon as ever lunch is over. But now it is on the table; so do come in, good folks, both of you, and eat.”