“Oh! but they will understand, we shall all understand,” rejoined Marygold, eagerly, “and you mustn’t look so sad, poor dear Gaston, because it makes me feel so sad for you too.”
“Ah! you are good for me, Marygold,” he said, and a gleam set all his face alight, “you are very good.”
“But I pity you so, poor Gaston, because it’s not your fault that you are a little French boy,” said Marygold. “Oh! Gaston, where are you going so fast? Don’t run away.”
Gaston had started up as if he had been suddenly stung, and scrambled over the hedge. Nor did he return for all Marygold’s beseeching.
“No, it is done; I have finished with them,” he muttered. His eyes were dry, but his spirit had never been so sore, “even she says it now, even Marygold!”
CHAPTER XXII.
“NOW THESE BE SECRET THINGS.”
“LIBBIE, what is that funny noise that we hear up here? It always seems to go on and on, as if a big crowd of people were talking, only such a long way off that it is more like a muffled, rumbling roar.”
Diana was up in the big cheese room, helping or hindering Libbie in the making of a splendid “double duttons” for which, Mrs. Busson had quite a reputation in the country side.
“What does that noise come from, Libbie?” Di repeated.
“Take care, Miss Di, do, you’ll be upsetting that crock there, by your elbow,” was Libbie’s answer. “There! I do believe by the look of that cloud that we’re going to have a thunderstorm, and if we do, all the pans in the dairy will be spoilt before I can scald them. I wonder—”