“Copper,” returned Pamela curtly.
“I wish we could have some good roses. Evergreen isn’t successful with flowers. But he lets us have plenty of vegetables. I came to know if you would both come over to Malling Flower Show next Thursday. We could bike—that would be great fun, wouldn’t it? Mr. Meadows has asked me to judge the wild flowers, and I feel so horribly nervous. But I’ve been reading it up.”
“You can’t go to Malling,” Pamela said, looking sternly at the weak, radiant face, and hating Nancy all the more fiercely because her temples were so purely white, and because the ruddy hair grew round them so charmingly. “It’s lecture-day at Liddleshorn—the nursing lecture. It will be very interesting; we are going to bandage a small boy.”
“But I don’t care for the lecture. We are not going to finish the course. Annie says that her mother—Aunt Jerusha—thought scientific nursing a great mistake, and always said that no woman could expect to be a good nurse until she had been the mother of a large family and had buried two-thirds of it. You must come to Malling.”
She was speaking to Pamela, but her blue eyes were on Edred.
“I’ll come, anyhow,” he said lightly. “I’ll call at Turle about three. Will that do? Pamela would rather go to Liddleshorn and bandage her small boy.”
“That would be fun. And you’ll come into supper afterward. I must go now. Mother told me to look in at Hone’s—Nick Hone’s.”
“Where there are so many children?” asked Pamela, her gloomy eyes on the straight line of beauty afforded by her choice roses.
“No. Those are the Peter Hones. The Bert Hones live near us. But Nick Hone is a neighbor of yours. Jethro!” she called out shrilly, and he came across the rough, dry ground, hoe in hand, “do send poor Nick Hone in some new potatoes. You have plenty.” She glanced along the beds at the rows in white blossom. “He’s dying, and he keeps saying that if he had a dish of new potatoes he’d get better. Mrs. Hone went and dug some yesterday, but they were only as large as cob-nuts. Mother would have sent some, but Evergreen is a little touchy. He doesn’t like us to interfere with the vegetables.”
“Daborn shall take a trug full,” said Jethro carelessly. “Dying, is he? That’s drink. Never knew such a fellow! Three gallons of cider a day at harvest time wasn’t enough for him. The other men save some and take it home to their wives.”