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"I've fetched the doctor," he said, "and she wants the Greenways to know it; I thought maybe she'd be here." "What is it? Who's ill?" asked the cobbler. "Tain't anyone that's ill," answered Daniel; "he's stone dead. They shot him right through the heart." "Who? Who?" cried all the voices together. "I found him," continued Daniel, "up in the woods; partly covered up with leaves he was.
"Why, badly," replied Mrs Greenways in a mortified tone; "I never knew such onlucky broods. A cow got into the orchard and trampled down one. Fifteen as likely ducklings as you'd wish to see. And the rats scared off a hen just as she'd hatched out; and we lost a whole lot more with the cramp." "H'm, h'm, h'm," said the cobbler sympathisingly, "that was bad, that was.
"See here, it is plain I've got to have two picnics now to-morrow. At the head of the Falls I disembark my first contingent, say the 'Greenways' one. I give them instructions to go straight down to the bottom of the second Fall, they are all good climbers. When they've got a good start, say twenty minutes, I call up the second contingent, the little pets and Edith's youngsters and start them down.
Her mother's words came into Lilac's mind: "Don't be beholden to no one." "I don't mind work, Aunt," she repeated more boldly. "I'd rather work. Mother, she always taught me to." "Well, that's a good thing," said Mrs Greenways. "Because, now you're left so desolate, you've got nothing to look to but your own hands and feet.
She could hear the exclamations of surprise and admiration which fell from Mrs Greenways as they appeared ready to start. "Well," she said with uplifted hands, "you do know how to give your things a bit of style. That I will say." Bella had spent days of toil in preparing for this occasion, and the result was now so perfect in her eyes that it was well worth the labour.
The Queen's eyes filled with tears of disappointment, and through them the form of Peter Greenways seemed to loom unnaturally large, his face redder than ever above his blue neckcloth, his mouth and eyes wide open. Lilac checked her tears and remembered her exalted position.
She began to wish she had something pretty to put on in honour of the concert, and even to have a faint hope that her aunt might give her a new dress too. But this did not seem even to occur to Mrs Greenways, and Lilac soon gave up all thoughts of it with a sigh. Her Sunday frock was very shabby, but after all just to stand up amongst the other children it would not show much.
If she can manage the dairy alone here, she can do it with someone over her there." "Now I wonder who could 'a told Mrs Leigh that Lilac made our butter," said Mrs Greenways; "somehow or other that child gets round everyone with her quiet ways." "Most likely that interfering old Joshua Snell," said Bella, "or Peter maybe, or Ben. They all think no end of Lilac."
She at once left her occupation, seized a saucepan and an iron spoon, and regardless of her mistress rushed out into the garden, making a hideous clatter as she went. "There now, look at that!" said Mrs Greenways with a heated face. "She's off for goodness knows how long, and a batch of loaves burning in the oven, and your uncle wanting his tea sent down into the field.
Joshua was a welcome guest everywhere, in spite of his poverty and lowly station; even at the Greenways', who held their heads so high, and did not "mix", as Bella called it, with the "poor people."
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