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Updated: May 12, 2025
She had not long to think about this, for her cousin soon introduced another and a very interesting subject. "Who's goin' to be Queen this year, I wonder?" she said; "there'll be a sight of flowers if the weather keeps all on so fine." "It'll be you, Agnetta, for sure," answered Lilac; "I know lots who mean to choose you this time." "I dessay," said Agnetta with an air of lofty indifference.
And as Agnetta left the room with an injured shrug, he continued: "Seems too as if Lilac had all the work and none of the fun. You'd like an outing as well as any of 'em wouldn't you, my maid?" Lilac did not know what to make of such unexpected kindness. As a rule her uncle seemed hardly to know that she was in the house.
"She was talkin' about Lilac as I was in at Dimbleby's getting a bunch of candles," continued Mrs Wishing, "sayin' how her picture was going to be took; an' says she, `It's a poor sort of picture as she'll make, with a face as white as her pinafore. Now, if it was Agnetta, says she, `as has a fine nateral bloom, I could understand the gentleman wantin' to paint her."
And in the spring I mean to try and get ever such a lot of early ducks." "Well, I hate all that," said Agnetta. "Now, if I could choose I wouldn't live on a farm at all. I'd have lots of servants, and silk gownds and gold bracelets and broaches, and satting furniture, and a carridge to drive in every day. An' I'd lie in bed ever so late in the mornings and always do what I liked."
"Bella and me's different. We're on a different footing." Agnetta had heard her mother use this expression, and though she would have been puzzled to explain it, it gave her an agreeable sense of superiority to her cousin. In spite of soberness and gravity, Lilac felt not a little envious the next day when Mr Buckle drove up in his high gig to fetch her cousins to the fete.
"It's you that's Queen," they whispered; and at length she awoke to the wonderful fact that it was not Agnetta or anyone else who had the most votes, but she herself, Lilac White. She was Queen!
"I most wish," said Lilac, as she turned to leave the loft, "that I hadn't done it." As she spoke, the distant sound of the church clock was heard. There was only just time to get to the foot of the hill, and she said a hurried good-bye to Agnetta, tying on her bonnet as she ran across the fields.
The colt would not be sold and None-so-pretty would have to go in his place. She returned to the farm more than ever impressed by Peter's power. Quiet, dull Peter who seemed hardly able to put two sentences together, and had never an answer ready for his sisters' sharp speeches. That evening when Bella and Agnetta returned from Lenham, Lilac was at the gate.
True, there was plenty of noise and bustle here as well as indoors, and family quarrels were not wanting amongst the poultry; but unlike the sharp speeches of Bella and Agnetta they left no bad feeling behind, and were soon settled by a few pecks and flaps.
The grass in the orchard was freshly green and sprinkled with daisies, amongst which families of fluffy yellow ducklings trod awkwardly about on their little splay feet, while the careful mother hens picked out the best morsels of food for them. This food was flung out of a basin by Agnetta Greenways, who stood there squarely erect uttering a monotonous "Chuck, chuck, chuck," at intervals.
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