"Knows what?" asked Penelope curiously.
"My secret," said Poppy solemnly. "I'll tell you if you'll promise not to tell any one else." But at that moment all confidences were stopped by the appearance of Esther and Ephraim.
Poppy accepted Esther's rapturous greeting calmly. She, of course, did not realise yet the state of alarm they had all been in on her account; her whole attention was absorbed by the sight of a strange man in possession of her precious watering-can. It was too much for her to pass unnoticed.
"That's my tan, please, I fink," she said politely but firmly, and Ephraim felt his wisdom in bringing this means of identification had been fully justified.
Happy and triumphant the whole party returned to the house, to be received by Anna with open arms and a face beaming with joy. What did it matter if Poppy's apron was covered with mud, and her frock and boots and hands the same? Instead of being treated as a culprit, she was made a heroine of, and appreciated the difference.
When Anna had finished crooning over her, and the story of the discovery had been repeated more than once, she was taken upstairs by Esther, and washed and changed, so that by the time Miss Ashe returned, instead of the bedraggled, dirty little maiden of an hour before, she saw only a perfectly neat and spotless one, and had no suspicion of all that had taken place during her absence.
Ephraim came into the hall to speak to his mistress just as Poppy came down the stairs.
"Well, Ephraim, how far did you get with your morning's work? Did you get the turnip-seed planted?"
"Well, yes, ma'am, I did," said Ephraim slowly. "I made a nice bed for it right there under the lew wall there in the far corner. But—well, whatever has come to it since, it passes me to know; when I went away that there bed was so smooth and tidy as my hand; when I comes back to it— well, ma'am, you honestly might have knocked me flat with a feather, that there newly made bed was—well, 'twas more like a mud-heap than anything you ever saw in your life, ma'am, and trampled—well, out of all shape and semblance. I neer see'd the likes of it in my life. So soon as it's dried I'll have to go and do it all again, and have a second sowing, but it'll be a day or so before it's fit to touch; 'tisn't no use to trust to that first crop—it's my belief it's all ruined."
Poppy drew up suddenly on her way to the dining-room. Her face had grown very red, her hands were working nervously. "You—oh, you mustn't disturb it, please," she gasped. "I—I've planted some thing, and it mustn't be disturbed, it's very good seed, and I watered it to make it grow quickly—it—it did look rather muddy, but—but it'll soon dry."