"Are you all at home?"
"Yes. We go to school, of course."
"Then there is a school here."
"Oh yes, a big one. I'm very glad you've come, Miss Douglas."
"Thank you; it's nice to have a welcome."
"You see, we're all so upset since mother got so ill; she's almost always in bed now. She hasn't been up for five weeks at all, and we do get in a muddle. I do what I can, but I can't do much. I have to go to school, you see, and our girl is so slow. She's not a bad sort, but she can't hurry; some people can't. And the boys are so tiresome, and they won't do what I tell them."
"Where are we going now?" asked Marjorie, as they seemed to be leaving the road and turning into the darkness.
"Oh, it's a short cut over the mounds. Take hold of my arm; you can't see, and you'll be walking off into one of the pit-pools. The lakes we call them," she added, with a laugh. "You come from the Lakes, don't you?"
"Yes, from such a lovely place."
"Well, you won't like our lakes, I'm afraid. They're only rainwater that lies in the hollows between the mounds. There are plenty of them about here."