"They look as if they were growing out of the green earth," she said; "pots should always be green, don't you think so? or else clear glass, like water."
"Good," he said, and went on cramming the flowers in. At last there were only the pale white roses left.
"We'll put them here," Margaret said, and set down the pot by the photograph of a thin, sweet-looking woman on the left of the writing-table.
"That's her mother," Tom said, half tenderly; Margaret pushed the roses nearer to it, and loved him for his tone. Then when all the flowers were placed about the little blue and white room, and the freshness of spring was its own, they laughed again like the light-hearted children they were, and went out to their cab.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Gilman," Tom cried, as he closed the doors. "Tell Miss Hunstan we did it—Miss Vincent and I, and that we left her our blessing."
X
The brown cart was waiting at the station, a successor to the heavy one of former days, lighter and better built, and the cob—a new cob—hurried along with it as though it were a cockle-shell. Hannah was not there, only the boy who went out with the milk in the morning. He sat up behind and took care of the luggage, while Mr. Vincent drove with his daughter beside him, contented and happy. The visit to London had drawn them closer together. To Margaret it had been a strange looking back; for she had hardly realized till now that her father must have had a history before the day when he had entered the farm gates and seen her mother for the first time. She had heard Hannah speak of it—the coming of the stranger, as it had remained in Hannah's mind through all the years afterwards. Margaret thought, too, of her grandfather and uncle, the relations of whom she had known nothing when she started yesterday. She was glad they had been people of position, even though they had spent their money or had done undesirable things, as something in her father's manner seemed to imply; for it made her father's life appear a more important thing, not to her, but in the world, that might otherwise have thought it merely one of the details of the farm at Chidhurst. She looked at the moor as they drove beside it. The clumps of broom and gorse had come out since yesterday full and golden in the sunshine. The fresh green of the whortleberries was showing itself, the bell-heather was struggling into bloom; just so the possibilities of life had broken into her imagination, and if some struck her with wonder, there were others that filled her with joy. An unreasonable, undefinable happiness that could not be put into words rose to her heart when she thought of Tom Carringford. She could hear his laughter still, and his merry talk as they made a bower of Miss Hunstan's room; she wanted to see him again already, and something told her that he wanted to see her.
The farm-yard gates were wide open. It was good to see the corner of the Dutch garden again, and in the porch, just as Margaret had known she would be, her mother stood waiting. Mr. Vincent took his wife's hand without a word, and looked into her face with a little smile.