“My dear Scylla,” it said—Mr. Winter had called her “Scylla,” because he said that as the little blue flower was the first to push its way through the hard frosty ground, so she had been the first to push her way through his frosty nature:—
“My dear Scylla,—Your last letter interested me much, and what you told me of the old house next to Miss Potts made me so anxious to see it that I have determined to come over to Trelint for a few days to have a look at it; so be sure that no one else takes it first. The front of it so close to the street that I can see your house from it, sounds very enticing, and the old-fashioned garden at the back sounds as if it was made on purpose for me; and if I like it as much as I think I shall from what you say, I should not be surprised if, like Miss Potts herself, I felt so at home in Trelint I should never want to leave it again, and then you would be relieved of the task of writing to your dull old friend,
Matthew Winter.”
A very few days later, Mr. Winter did come to Trelint, and Mrs. Carlyon and the children went with him to inspect the comfortable, roomy old house which stood beside Miss Potts’ little old-fashioned house and shop, without humbling hers or losing its own dignity. And everything in the house seemed right; and the garden was beautiful, large, and old, and well-filled with every kind of flower that one loves best, and many kinds of fruits too.
“I must have this,” said Mr. Winter, and he spoke so eagerly and gaily it was a treat to hear him. “I can just imagine you children racing about here and playing all sorts of games. You will let them come, won’t you, Mrs. Carlyon?”
“Oh, indeed, yes,” she cried laughingly; “they will come—the question is, will they go? You must see to it that they do, Mr. Winter. I am sure they will always be wanting to be here.”
“It really is a dear old house, and the garden is lovely,” she said afterwards to her husband; “but I believe he would have taken it if it had been the most wretched and inconvenient place imaginable, he seemed so determined to come here.”
“And it all came,” said Loveday solemnly, when they were talking over the wonderful event amongst themselves—“it all came about through my being a pisky in his garden.”
“Or a prisoner in his house,” jeered Geoffrey, to tease her.