But Dolly knew how that pleasant country place would look when the hawthorn was in bloom, and the roses climbing over the rustic porches, and the corn cut and standing in goodly sheaves under the summer sun.
There was not a mood or tense of country life Dolly did not understand and love, and she felt like a child disappointed of a new toy while wending her way back to the station to think her search had proved all in vain.
She was in this mood as she drew near the cottage I have described.
"I could be quite satisfied even with that," she considered. "I could soon make it look different," and she stood leaning over the gate and picturing the place with grass close under the window, with a few evergreens planted against the palings, with a rustic garden-chair with rustic baskets filled with flowers, on the scrap of lawn she herself had imagined.
As she so stood an old woman came to the door and looked down the walk at the stranger curiously.
"I was admiring your dear little place," said Dolly apologetically. "I think it is so sweet and quiet."
The woman trotted down to the gate on hearing these words of praise, and answered,
"Aye, it is main pretty in the summer, when the flowers are in full blow, and the trees in full leaf. I tell my master we shall often think of it in the strange land we are going to."
Now this sentence perplexed Dolly; owing to the tone in which it was spoken, she could not tell whether the woman meant she and her husband were going to heaven or to foreign parts, so she asked no question.