“But it is six weeks from now, at least, before they ever come out, Francie, dear,” said Mary, for the twentieth time; “they are not like little boys and girls, you see, who are there in the house all ready to come out the minute the sun shines and the fine weather comes. The primroses have all their growing to do first, and they need the sun and the spring rain to help them to grow, every year.”
“But is them never the same primroses?” said Francie, in some perplexity. “Is them new every year—never the same?”
“No,” said Mary, “they are never the same.”
But as she said the words their sound struck her. “Never the same,” nay, indeed, say rather, “ever the same,” she thought. ”‘Pale primroses,’ as pretty Perdita called them three hundred years ago! They must have looked up in our great-great-great-grandmothers’ faces just as they do in ours now—just as they will, centuries hence, smile at the Francies that will be looking for them then. What a strange world it is! Ever the same and never the same, over and over again.”
“What are you thinking about, Mary? Tell me,” said Francie.
“Nothing you would understand, dear,” Mary was saying, when the child interrupted her.
“Mary,” she said, “I hear such a funny noise, don’t you? It’s like something going very fast—oh! Mary, couldn’t it be one of the wild bulls running after us?”
Francie grew white with fear. Mary, hastily assuring her it could not be a wild bull, stood still to listen. Yes, Francie was right—there certainly was a sound to be heard of something rapidly nearing them, and the sound somehow made Mary’s heart beat faster.
“It can only be a horse,” she said; “I dare say its nothing wrong.”
But her face and actions belied her words. There was a gate close by the spot where they stood. Mary unlatched it, and drew Francie within its shelter. Not a minute too soon—the rushing, tearing sound grew nearer and nearer, but a turn in the lane hid the cause of it till close upon them.