heumatics and the chances of rain, and said
no word of either Lilac or her fringe. Mrs White had had time to
repent of her harsh words, and when the hours went by, and Lilac did not
come back, she had pictured her receiving comfort and encouragement from
the Greenways--the very people she wished her to avoid. Now she had
driven her to them. "I could bite my tongue out for talking so
foolish," she said to herself as she ran out to the gate, over and over
again. When at last she saw the two well-known figures approaching, she
could only just restrain herself from rushing out to meet Lilac and
covering her with kisses. The relief was almost too great to bear.

In her own home, therefore, Lilac heard nothing further on the unlucky
subject. But this was not by any means the case in the village, where
nothing was too small to be important. The fact of the Widow White's
Lilac wearing a fringe was quite enough to talk of, and more than enough
to stare at, for it was something new. Unfortunately everyone knew
Lilac, and Lilac knew everyone, so there was no escape. Her
acquaintances would draw up in front of her and gaze steadily for an
instant, after which the same remarks always came:

"My! you have altered yerself. I shouldn't never have known you, I do
declare! And so you didn't have yer picter done after all?"

Lilac wished she could hide somewhere until her hair had grown long
again. And worst of all, when Mrs Leigh next saw her in school, she
looked quite startled and said:

"I'm so sorry you've cut your hair, Lilac; it looked much nicer before."

It was the same thing over and over again, no one approved the change
but Agnetta, and Lilac's faith in her cousin was by this time a little
bit shaken. She should not be so ready, she thought, the next time to
believe that Agnetta must know best. One drop of comfort in all this
was that the artist gentleman no longer sat painting at the bottom of
the hill. He had packed up all his canvases and brushes and gone off to
the station, so that Lilac saw him no more. She was very glad of this,
for she felt that it would have been almost impossible to pass him every
day and to see his keen disapproving glance fixed upon her. Slowly the
picture that was to have been painted was forgotten, and Lilac White's
fringe became a thing of custom. There were more important matters near
at hand; May Day was approaching, an event of interest and excitement to
both young and ol