ys 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. In reality her eyes were full of tears and
she would have given worlds to cry heartily with the child, for to use
those hard words to her was like bruising her own flesh. But she was
too mortified and angry to show it, and Lilac, after casting some
wistful glances at the active figure, turned and went slowly out of the
room with drooping head.

Pulling her bonnet forward so that her forehead and the dreadful fringe
were quite hidden, she wandered down the hill, hardly knowing or caring
where she went. All the world was against her. No one would ever look
pleasantly at her again, if even her mother frowned and turned away.
One by one she recalled what they had all said. First, Peter: "I liked
it best as it wur afore." Then the artist--he had been quite angry.
"You stupid little girl," he had said, "you've made yourself quite
commonplace. You're no use whatever. Run away." And now Mother--that
was worst of all: "You don't look like my child." Lilac's tears fell
fast when she remembered that. How very hard they all were upon her!
She strayed listlessly onwards, and presently came to a sudden
standstill, for she found that she was getting near the bottom of the
hill, where the artist was no doubt still sitting. That would never do.
At her right hand there branched off a wide grass-grown lane, one of
the ancient roads of the Romans which could still be traced along the
valley. It was seldom used now, for it led nowhere in particular; but
here and there at long distances there were some small cottages in it,
and in one of these lived the cobbler, Joshua Snell.

Now, Uncle Joshua, as she called him, though he was no relation to her,
was a great friend of Lilac's, and the thought of him darted into her
forlorn little mind like a ray of comfort. He would perhaps look kindly
at her in spite of her fringe. There was no one else to do it except
Agnetta, and to reach her the artist must be passed, which was
impossible. Lilac could not remember that Joshua had ever been cross to
her, even in the days when she had played with his bits of leather and
mislaid his tools--those old days when she was a tiny child, and Mother
had left her with him "to mind" when she went out to work. And besides
being kind he w