in at
once, she would have believed it possible, because he knew so much.

Gradually, as she remembered this, she ceased crying altogether, and
began to move about the room to prepare the tea, a business to which she
was well used, for she had always considered it an honour to get Uncle
Joshua's tea and make toast for him. The kettle already hung on its
chain over the fire, and gave out a gentle simmering sound; by the time
the toast was ready the water would boil. Lilac got the bread from the
corner cupboard and cut some stout slices. Uncle liked his toast thick.
Then she knelt on the hearth, and shielding her face with one hand
chose out the fiercest red hollows of the fire. It was an anxious
process, needing the greatest attention; for Lilac prided herself on her
toast, and it was a matter of deep importance that it should be a fine
even brown all over--neither burnt, nor smoked, nor the least blackened.
While she was making it she was happy again, and quite unconscious of
the fringe, for the first time since she had felt Agnetta's cold
scissors on her brow.

It was soon quite ready on a plate on the hearth, so that it might keep
hot. Uncle Joshua was ready also, for he came in just then from his
shed, carrying his completed job in his hand: a pair of huge hobnailed
boots, which he placed gently on the ground as though they were brittle
and must be handled with care.

"Them's Peter Greenways' boots," he said, looking at them with some
triumph, "and a good piece of work they be!"

It was a great relief to Lilac that neither then nor during the meal did
Uncle Joshua look at her with surprise, or appear to notice that there
was anything different about her. Everything went on just as usual,
just as it had so often done before. She sat on one side of the table
and poured out the tea, and Uncle Joshua in his high-backed elbow chair
on the other, with his red-and-white handkerchief over his knees, his
spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and a well-buttered slice of toast
in his hand. He never talked much during his meals; partly because he
was used to having them alone, and partly because he liked to enjoy one
thing at a time thoroughly. He was fond of talking and he was fond of
eating, and he would not spoil both by trying to do them together. So
to-night, as usual, he drank endless cups of tea in almost perfect
silence, and at last Lilac began to wish he would stop, for although she
feared she yet longed