Chapter Three.
Millflowers.
Our “banishment,” as I sometimes, in a rather discontented mood, called our stay abroad, came to an end rather sooner than we had expected, thanks to an unusually early and genial spring, which made even father think that it would be safe for mother to return to England. Moore, by this time, was in rollicking health and quite fit for school. And to me our home-going was considerably damped by the knowledge that it meant parting with my last playfellow.
After all, the winter had passed pleasantly enough; the Paynes had helped to enliven it. But mother looked rather askance at my friendship with them.
“Boys again!” she said half-laughingly. “Always boys, Regina! I wish there had been a Miss Payne.”
“She wouldn’t have been half as nice as Isabel Wynyard,” I replied. “And Rupert is really not like a boy; his whole interest is in books and things of that kind. But you should be pleased, mamma, that I have made one real girl friend at last.”
“So I am,” was the reply—“very pleased.”
“If only they lived nearer us,” I said with a sigh. “I shall be dreadfully dull at home when Moore goes.”
“Poor Regina!” said mother. “Well, we must find something to cheer you up.”
And though I did not then know it, I believe that it was this conversation that made her determine to arrange for my promised visit to Millflowers as soon as possible. She never thought of herself, though home without any child in it seemed scarcely home to her.