XI
MARY SEES MRS. COPPERT AND MRS. COPPERT SEES MARY
During the next few days Mary saw nothing of Evangeline, though she would have liked very much to hear another story. Sister Agatha often took her on to the beach, and Mary found that, although it is possible to make a great many things out of mud, you can make more and much nicer things out of sand.
Sometimes she thought she should like to have other children to play with, but not the same little boys and girls with whom she used to play in William Street, because she wished never to have anything to do with William Street or Mrs. Coppert again.
One day Mary was sitting with Sister Agatha as usual, when Evangeline entered the room, but she seemed too busy to take much notice of anything except the new dress which she had come to show Sister Agatha. The dress was all white and shiny, with small flowers about it, white flowers, too, and Mary admired it so much as Evangeline held it across her arms that she touched it with her finger-tips.
'Don't you think Mary might go out into the garden?' said Evangeline.
'I ought to fetch her hat then,' said Sister Agatha.
'It is beautifully warm,' answered Evangeline; 'I don't think it can hurt her to go as she is.'
So Sister Agatha told Mary she might go, and she stepped out through the open window just as she was—pinafore and all. For a few minutes she walked about the grass watching a gardener who was mowing it. She looked on whilst he swept the grass he had cut into a basket and emptied the basket into a wheel-barrow. Then he wheeled the barrow to an iron gate, and having passed through the gate, he disappeared round the corner.