“It’s such a fine evening,” she said, “and it’s scarcely five o’clock. How would you like to go out a little walk? We didn’t go very far to-day. We might go as far as the Lavender Cottages, I’ve something to take there from your mamma.”
The boys looked very pleased.
“Oh yes, nurse,” they said, “do let’s go out.”
“And mayn’t we stop and see the puppies at the smithy on the way?” Leigh went on.
“I’m f’ightened of those little barky dogs,” said Mary; “I don’t want to go out, nurse, I’m sleepy.”
“It’ll do you good, my dear, to have a little walk before you go to bed; you’ll sleep all the better for it and wake all the fresher in the morning,” and a few minutes afterwards, when the little party were walking down the drive, Mary looked quite bright again.
It was a very lovely evening. The way to the Lavender Cottages lay across the fields, and, as every one knows, there is nothing prettier than a long stretch of grass land with the tender spring green lighted up by late afternoon sunshine.
Mary trotted along contentedly, thinking to herself.
“My birfday’s going to bed soon,” she thought, “and to-morrow morning it’ll be gone—gone away for a long, long time,” and she gave a little sigh. “But somefins won’t be gone away, all my birfday presents will stay, and baby sister will stay, and when my birfday comes back again it will be hers too. Dear little baby sister! I wish her had comed out a walk wif us, the sun is so pitty.”
The smithy was at the foot of the road leading up to the cottages, just opposite the stile by which they left the fields. This stile had three steps up and three steps down, with a bar of wood to clamber across at the top. It was one of the children’s favourite stiles, as the boys always pretended that the bar was a pony on which they had a ride on the way over. To-day nurse and Mary waited patiently till they had ridden far enough. Then Artie hopped down the other side and Leigh stood at the top to help his sister over, for though he was a teasing boy sometimes, he never forgot that she was a little girl and that it was his place to take care of her.