Whenever they passed a cottage the neighbours came out to tell the invalid how good it was to see him as far as that again; indeed, every one they met had a warm greeting of some kind for him. Then, when they had passed all the people and the houses, and had the road to themselves, their minds went back to the past.
When they came to the old milestone where her father used to wait for them, Bella almost stopped the donkey, and, for the first time since that dreadful day when they had waited there in vain for him, she could bear to look at the old grey stone. "I wonder when——" she began, but stopped for fear of hurting him. He guessed what she had been going to say.
"I b'lieve I shall walk again that far to meet you," he said cheerfully. "You will find me standing there some day when you ain't expecting it;" and if Bella could have been happier than she was before, she was then.
When they reached Norton the town was already full, and the market in full swing. Bella had never before arrived at this time, and to her it all seemed new and strange, and most intensely interesting. But of course the market-house was the goal they were making for, and they could not loiter on the way. She was to put her father down there, and then drive on and leave Rocket at the stable, so that she, the beginner of it all, the founder of the market garden, would be the last to see this, the great climax to their toil.
For just a moment she did feel a sense of disappointment. Here was the day half gone already, and she had not set eyes on their stall yet. But the thought was soon followed by one of shame for her ingratitude, and when she reached the market at last she felt she would not for all the world have had things other than they were, or have come at any other time. For there, behind the stall—now showing large empty spaces made by many purchasers—sat her father, looking more perfectly happy and content than she had ever remembered seeing him. And there, beside him, stood Margery, looking on at everything with an intensely interested face. Aunt Emma was hovering between the poultry and the flowers, trying hard to serve two customers at once, while even Tom, though so much more accustomed to it, seemed puzzled to know which customer to serve first, so many were coming to him for fruit or vegetables, or to leave orders for things to be delivered through the week, or to be brought there on the following Saturday. Charlie was bustling around, lending every one a hand.
And then Bella noticed that her father was taking charge of the till, and her eyes grew blurred with tears when she saw the pleasure on his face as one after the other they went to him for change. He was helping them again, he too was taking part, and at their first stall too, and his evident joy in it was so pathetic that she had to turn away to recover herself before she could go up and let them know that she had come.
CHAPTER XII.
SUCCESS.
Two years have passed away since William Hender drove in to see his children open their first stall in Norton Market, and now, to-day, he is waiting for them once more by the old milestone.