III.
HESTER REED’S PILLS.
We were at our other and chief home, Dyke Manor: and Tod and I were there for the short Easter holidays, which were shorter in those days than they are in these.
It was Easter Tuesday. The Squire had gone riding over to old Jacobson’s with Tod. I, having nothing else to do, got the mater to come with me for a practice on the church organ; and we were taking the round home again through the village, Church Dykely.
Easter was very late that year. It was getting towards the end of April: and to judge by the weather, it might have been the end of May, the days were so warm and glorious.
In passing the gate of George Reed’s cottage, Mrs. Todhetley stopped.
“How are the babies, Hester?”
Hester Reed, sunning her white cap and clean cotton gown in the garden, the three elder children around, watering the beds with a doll’s watering-pot, and a baby hiding its face on her shoulder, dropped a curtsy as she answered—
“They be but poorly, ma’am, thank you. Look up, Susy,” turning the baby’s face upwards to show it: and a pale mite of a face it was, with sleepy eyes. “For a day or two past they’ve not seemed the thing; and they be both cross.”