attire Agnetta had
described, and gave a little sigh of longing.

"I must go back," she said, getting up suddenly, "Mother'll want me.
There's lots to do at home."

"I'll go with you a piece," said Agnetta; "we'll go through the farmyard
way so as I can leave the basin."

This was a longer way home for Lilac than across the fields, but she
never thought of disputing Agnetta's decision, and the cousins left the
orchard by another gate which led into the garden. It was not a very
tidy garden, and although some care had been bestowed on the vegetables,
the flowers were left to come up where they liked and how they liked,
and the grass plot near the house was rank and weedy. Nevertheless it
presented a gay and flourishing appearance with its masses of polyanthus
in full bloom, its tulips, and Turk's head lilies, and lilac bushes.
There was one particular bed close to the gate which had a neater
appearance than the rest, and where the flowers grew in a well-ordered
manner as though accustomed to personal attention. The edges of the
turf were trimly clipped, and there was not a weed to be seen. It had a
mixed border of forget-me-not and London pride.

"How pretty your flowers grow!" said Lilac, stopping to look at it with
admiration.

"Oh, that's Peter's bed," said Agnetta carelessly, snapping off some
blossoms. "He's allays mucking at it in his spare time--not that he's
got much, there's so much to do on the farm."

The house was now in front of them, and a little to the left the
various, coloured roofs of the farm buildings, some tiled with
weather-beaten bricks, some thatched, some tarred, and the bright yellow
straw ricks standing here and there. Between these buildings and the
house was a narrow lane, generally ankle-deep in mud, which led into the
highroad.

Lilac was very fond of the farmyard and all the creatures in it. She
stopped at the gate and looked over at a company of small black pigs
routing about in the straw.

"Oh, Agnetta!" she exclaimed, "you've got some toiny pigs; what peart
little uns they are!"

"I can't abide pigs," said Agnetta with a toss of her curl-papered head;
"no more can't Bella, we neither of us can't. Nasty, vulgar,
low-smelling things."

Lilac felt that hers must be a vulgar taste as Agnetta said so, but
still she _did_ like the little pigs, and would have been glad to linger
near them. It was often puzzling to her that Agnetta called so many
things common and vulgar,