“Well, I’m glad my little girl didn’t snatch and push. It’s better to go without than to take from other people. That’s ugly.”
Ugly. Being naughty was just that. Doing ugly things. Being good was being beautiful like Mamma. She wanted to be like her mother. Sitting up there and being good felt delicious. And the smooth cream with the milk running under it, thin and cold, was delicious too.
Suddenly a thought came rushing at her. There was God and there was Jesus. But even God and Jesus were not more beautiful than Mamma. They couldn’t be.
“You mustn’t say things like that, Hatty; you mustn’t, really. It might make something happen.”
“Oh, no, it won’t. You don’t suppose they’re listening all the time.”
Saying things like that made you feel good and at the same time naughty, which was more exciting than only being one or the other. But Mamma’s frightened face spoiled it. What did she think—what did she think God would do?
Red campion——
At the bottom of the orchard a door in the wall opened into Black’s Lane, below the three tall elms.
She couldn’t believe she was really walking there by herself. It had come all of a sudden, the thought that she must do it, that she must go out into the lane; and when she found the door unlatched, something seemed to take hold of her and push her out. She was forbidden to go into Black’s Lane; she was not even allowed to walk there with Annie.
She kept on saying to herself: “I’m in the lane. I’m in the lane. I’m disobeying Mamma.”