en them with her,
hoping to work at them a little while she talked. She often went up to
sit with Lucy. Perhaps she found it dull at home, with Mona always shut
up in her own room. Lucy's garden delighted her too. She had none
herself that could compare with it. In the front there was a tiny patch
close under her window, and there was a long strip at the back, but only a
very few things had the courage to grow there, for the wind caught it, and
the salt sea-spray came up over it, and blighted every speck of green that
had the courage to put its head out. Lucy's garden and Lucy's kitchen
both delighted her. She said the kitchen was more cheerful than hers,
but it was really Lucy's presence that made it so. Lucy was always so
pleased to see her, so ready to listen to her stories, or to tell her own,
if granny was too tired to talk. She always listened to her advice, too,
which was quite a new experience to Mrs. Barnes.

This afternoon, while granny was talking, and taking a stitch
occasionally, Lucy picked up the other curtain and made it. It was not a
very big matter; all the windows in Seacombe houses were small. Then she
put on the kettle, and while it was boiling she took the other curtain
from granny's frail hand and worked away at that too. The weather was
hot, and the door stood wide open, letting in the mingled scents of the
many sweet flowers which filled every foot of the garden. A sweet-brier
bush stood near the window, great clumps of stocks, mignonette and
verbenas lined the path to the gate.

"I didn't mean to stay to tea," said granny, realizing at last that Lucy
was preparing some for her. "I was going to get home in time."

"Mona won't have got it, will she?"

"Oh, no, she won't think about it, I expect. She has got a book, and when
she's reading she's lost to everything. I never knew a child so fond of
reading."

"You spoil her, granny! You let her have her own way too much."

Then they both laughed, for each accused the other of 'spoiling' Mona.

"I don't like her to work too hard," said granny. "She'd got to look very
thin and delicate. I think she's looking better, though, don't you?"

"Yes, ever so much," Lucy reassured her, and granny's face brightened.

Mona, meanwhile, went on reading, lost, as granny said, to everything but
her book. She did not even look out to sea. She heard no sound either in
the house or out. Heart and mind she was with the people of the story.