“I’ve a good mind to give her some,” was the kind thought that next stirred her heart, “but I suppose she’d run away if I spoke to her, or call me old witch as the rest of ’em do,” she went on bitterly, talking to herself, as people do who live alone; then adding, “Well, I can’t stand here all day; I must go on with my work,” she took up a watering-pot she had filled, and started for her little flower patch.
She had to pass a cottage, almost hidden with Flowers.
The instant the door opened, the flower-lover at the fence started on a run after the cows, which finding themselves not urged from behind, had stopped and were contentedly cropping the grass beside the road.
In a few minutes she had them safely shut into their pasture, and turned back towards the village.
As she passed Miss Hester, that lady was tying up some straggling vines, and almost to her own surprise, moved by her unwonted feeling of pity for the child, she hastily picked half a dozen stems of the fragrant blossoms and held them out.
“Want some?” she said shortly, almost gruffly, to the half-frightened child.
The girl stopped. “Oh, Miss Hester!” she said doubtingly, half afraid of the strange-looking, little woman who lived by herself, and was never known to speak to anybody.
“If you don’t want ’em,” said Miss Hester savagely, “you needn’t have ’em,” and she flung the flowers far over the fence and turned away.