‘Whatever for, lass?’ asked Mrs. Stott, as she drew the cord with tremulous hand.
For a few minutes the girl looked out at the distant horizon with a breaking light in her own eyes. Then, taking her mother's hand, she said:
‘Dun yo' see that rim o' gowd (gold) on the hills yonder?’
‘Yi, lass; forsure I do. What abaat it?’
‘Watch it, mother! See yo', it geds broder—more like a ribbin—a brode, yollow ribbin, like that aw wore i' mi hat when I were a little lass. Yo' remember, durnd yo'?—I wore it one charity sarmons.’
‘Aw remember, Amanda,’ said the parent, choking with the reminiscences of the past which the old hat and its yellow ribbon aroused.
‘Naa see, mother,’ continued the girl, her eye fixed on the opening sky; ‘it's like a great sea—a sea o' buttercups, same as used to grow in owd Whittam's field when yo' couldn't see grass for flaars.’
‘Yi, lass, I see,’ sobbed Mrs. Stott.
‘And thoose claads, mother! See yo' haa they're goin'. And th' hills and moors? Why I con see them plainer and plainer! Haa grond they are! They're awlus theer. Them, Mr. Penrose said, stood for God's love, didn't he, mother?—and them claads as are lifting for my sins.’
‘Yi, lass; he did, forsure.’