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"I know," continued her mother, "without you sayin' a word. It was one of them Greenways. But I did think as how you'd enough sense and sperrit of yer own to stand out agin' their foolishness let alone anything else. It's plain to me now that you don't care for yer mother or what she says. You'll fly right in her face to please any of them at Orchards Farm."
"But if Uncle sells the colt I s'pose you won't sell her, will you?" continued Lilac. "He won't sell him," was Peter's decided answer, as he turned to his work again. Now, nothing could have been more determined than Mr Greenways' manner as he rode away, but yet when Lilac heard Peter speak so firmly she felt he must be right.
She made anxious signs to Bella to quicken her movements, for she saw that the farmer was in a bad humour. Things had not gone well at market. "And what did you see at Lenham?" she asked, as she began to put the cups and saucers on the table. "Nawthing," answered Mr Greenways, staring at the fire. "What did you hear then?" persisted his wife. "Nawthing," was the answer again.
He had just finished the last line, and still held one knotty brown finger raised to mark the important words, when there was a low knock at the door, and immediately afterwards it opened a little way and a head appeared, covered by a rusty-black wideawake. It was the second time that day that Lilac had seen it, for it was Peter Greenways' head.
"Greenways" was smiling in the sunshine now as if it had never had such a garden guest as mist. "My dear lady," he said he had a habit of thinking aloud when he was alone like this "that is not a kind action I have done you, though you will probably thank me profusely. You can't always be edited like this, and even with all this assistance you won't have the least idea how the thing is done.
She had just finished this arrangement when a noise in the room below warned her of Mrs Greenways' approach, and running downstairs she found her seated breathless in the high-backed chair. One foot was stretched out appealingly in front of her, and she was so fatigued that at first she could only nod speechlessly at Lilac. "I'm fairly spent," she said at last, "with that terr'ble hill.
He gulped a lump from his throat. "I say!" Then he turned on his heel and strode through the cottage and over the verandah and through the "Tenby" garden and across the road and away down "Greenways" drive. "Bless the boy!" said Kate, wiping her eyes. "I know he didn't mean to hurt the poor thing."
And if me and Greenways likes to see our girls genteel and give 'em a bit of finishing eddication, and set 'em off with a few accomplishments, it's our own affair and not Mary White's. And though I say it as shouldn't, you won't find two more elegant gals than Gusta and Bella, choose where you may."
Mrs Greenways herself, though she was proud of her parlour, secretly preferred the kitchen, as being more handy and comfortable, so that except on great occasions the parlour was left in chilly loneliness. When Peter entered there were only his mother and Bella in the room.
And it's all been no good. Well, I've done. Go to your Greenways and let them teach you, and much profit may you get. I've done with you you don't look like my child no longer." She turned her back and began to bustle about with the linen, not looking towards Lilac again.
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