Then she seated herself near the door, with a gown of little Pattie's she was turning.
'It was so to speak rigmarole,' answered Oliver colouring, and pretending to plait a lash for his whip.
She shook her head. 'You did not speak the words without purpose.'
'We lead a hard life,' said Oliver evasively. 'That you can't deny and keep an honest tongue.'
'I do not attempt to deny it,' she said, threading a needle at the light that streamed in through the open door. The carrier looked at her appealingly. Behind her, seen through the door, was a bank of bushes and pink foxgloves, 'flopadocks' is the local name. He looked at the sunlit picture with dreamy eyes.
'I shouldn't wonder,' he said, 'if there was a hundred flowers on that there tallest flopadock.'
'I should not either,' said Honor without looking off her work. Then ensued another pause.
Presently the carrier sighed and said, 'It be main difficult to make both ends meet. The children are growing up. Their appetites increase. Their clothes get more expensive. The carrying business don't prosper as it ought. Kate, I reckon, will have to go into service, we can't keep her at home; but I don't like the notion—she a Luxmore of Coombe Park.'
'We are not Luxmores of Coombe Park, but Luxmores out of it,' said Honor.
'Coombe Park should be ours by right, and it rests with you whether we get our rights.'