would come
to Tredinnis. But her eyes wandered to the orderly dresser and the
scalding-pans by the fireplace.

"I mean--if Taffy had a sister it would be different."

Humility bent to lift a kettle off the fire. When she faced round
again, her eyes were smiling though her lip trembled a little.

"How bright you keep everything here!" said Honoria.

"There's plenty of sand to scour with; it's bad for the garden
though."

"Don't you grow any flowers?"

"I planted a few pansies the first year; they came from my home up in
Devonshire. But the sand covered them. It covers everything."
She smiled, and asked suddenly, "May I kiss you?"

"Of course you may," said Honoria. But she blushed as Humility did
it, and they both laughed shyly.

"Hullo!" cried Taffy from the foot of the stairs. Honoria moved to
the window. She heard the boy and his mother laughing and making
pretence to quarrel, while he chose the brownest of the hot cakes
from the wood-ashes. She stared out upon Humility's buried pansies.
It was strange--a minute back she had felt quite happy.

Humility set them off, and watched them till they disappeared in the
first dip of the towans; and then sat down in the empty kitchen and
wept a little before carrying up her mother's breakfast.

Honoria rode in silence for the first mile; but Taffy sang and
whistled by turns as he skipped alongside. The whole world flashed
and glittered around the boy and girl; the white gulls fishing, the
swallows chasing one another across the dunes, the lighthouse on the
distant spit, the white-washed mine-chimneys on the ridge beside the
shore. Away on the rises of the moor one hill-farm laughed to
another in a steady flame of furze blossom--laughed with a tinkling
of singing larks. And beyond the last rise lay the land of wonders,
George's country. "Hark!" Honoria reined up. "Isn't that the
cuckoo?" Taffy listened. Yes, somewhere among the hillocks seaward
its note was dinning.

"Count!"

"Cuckoo, cherry-tree,
Be a good bird and tell to me
How many years before I die?"

"Ninety-six!" Taffy announced.

"Ninety-two," said Honoria, "but we won't quarrel about it.
Happy month to you!"

"Eh?"

"It is the first of May. Come along; perhaps we shall meet the
Mayers, though we're too late, I expect. Hullo! there's a miner--
let's ask him."

The miner came upon them suddenly--footsteps make no sound among the
towans; a young man in a suit