As it was, her aunt's sharp eyes took notice.
"To be gone so long upon the hills, and yet bring so few blossoms? You must be slow in bending your back or heedless of the beauty around you. Where are the buttercups and beautiful blue iris from the field below the hill? Was the upper bridge gone that you could not cross the stream at that place either going or coming?" asked the woman, a little sarcastically.
"No, no, Aunt, but it is early for iris, and the buttercups are not half so lovely as these bluets and violets. See the darling little blue eyes peeping at us! Tomorrow I will look for the iris. But let me eat my supper now, for I am very hungry," laughed Eyllen, after she had placed her spring beauties in water.
"When we played by the schoolyard," remarked her youngster cousin dryly, from between huge mouthfuls of fish and potato, "she was standing on the high hilltop and looking out to sea. I am certain I saw her wave something to the sailors, only there were no sailors there," and the urchin glanced roguishly across the table at Eyllen.
"Ha, you rogue! It was likely the corner of my apron you saw, if indeed your sight was clear enough to see me at all so far away. I wonder Father Peter allows you to let go your fancy in such manner."
"Father Peter wishes us to learn by seeing, he tells us. Besides I wondered how you thought to pluck flowers on that barren hilltop where the snow is hardly yet melted. Warm and sunny hillsides are the spots where spring flowers grow."
"There, there," said the boy's mother, "you talk far too much. Eat your supper and let your elders alone."
The boy shrugged his shoulders and gulped down his tea, having finished his tea before the others owing to his haste in beginning.
The older woman then gravely inquired if any ships had that day been seen.
None could be reported; and the youngster was soon in a state of great sleepiness in bed, while the two women washed the supper dishes and made the small cabin once more tidy.