Women of the Country | Page 8

an old perambulator, in which she wheeled about her store
of aerated waters, toffee, and newspapers. She would place herself at
the gate of the cricket ground on Saturday afternoon. The sliding lid of
her chest made a counter on which she set her scales and her neatly cut
pile of paper for wrapping up the toffee. She had no rivals in the district,
for the most avaricious small shop-keeper would have been ashamed to
confuse or trouble the simple, good, courageous woman. Perhaps the
most complete sign of her triumph over her disability was, that no one
dreamed of calling her "Poor Mary." Like her friend, Anne Hilton, she
was a member of the little wayside chapel, which, with all that it meant,
made a centre of warmth and fellowship for both lonely women.
CHAPTER VI
So placid and unimpressive was the country which lay about Anne
Hilton's cottage, that in the lanes which branched from it one seldom
thought of any other season than that of spring. Even in winter, when a
few shrivelled berries clattered in the leafless hedges, and the old beech
leaves dangled until the new ones swelled in the stem, one thought of
the beauty of spring, when the hedges would be full of hawthorn, and
the banks of cowslips, when cherry-blossom would fill the orchards,
and the young lambs and calves lie about in the low, green meadows,
and the sky would be great and vigorous above the quiescent earth. On
the same day, a week later, Anne was in the dairy in the evening,
packing her butter for the following day's market. The day just
withdrawing had been golden from beginning to end. The sun had risen
without mist and set in a sky without a cloud, seeming, as it sank, to
draw with it all the colour from the heavens, as if it had cast a golden
net in the morning and now drew it home again behind the hill.
As the warm light ebbed, a coolness, as of an actual atmosphere

distilled into the cottage, became apparent in the kitchen. Now that the
sunlight had gone, one could see the objects in the room with a new
distinctness. It was serious, quiet, and orderly in this grave light, like
the room of some saint shown in piety to pilgrims.
A tall, half-grown youth came to the kitchen door, and, knocking twice,
entered and sat down lumpily on the wooden armchair, slipping a
basket from his arm on to the table as he did so. He looked round him,
pleased unconsciously by the grave light and the orderly room.
"You've a quiet life of it here," he said, rising to shake hands with Anne,
who came into the room at the same moment, bending a little as she
walked with the slightly anxious expression of one preoccupied with
pain.
"Yes," she replied, "it's very pleasant in the kitchen when the sun goes
off. Nearly every evening at this time something about the room brings
to my mind the hymn--
"When quiet in my house I sit, Thy book be my companion still."
The youth looked uncomfortable, thinking that he had brought upon
himself a sermon unawares, and that being actually inside the house,
and having sat down, he might have difficulty in extricating himself. So
he said, rather to turn the conversation from its personal character, than
from any sense of the fitness of his remarks.
"It's sad about Jane Evans, isn't it?"
"What's sad, Dick?" asked Anne, still standing, and resting both hands
on the table. "Excuse my not sitting down, I've got a bad turn of
rheumatism."
"That's bad," said Dick. "I once had a bit in my back, and it was as
much as I wanted."
"But what about Jane?" asked Anne. "I've scarcely seen her or her sister
since the old grandmother died. I seldom get so far away. The Ashley

road doesn't go near that side, and that's the one that sees me oftenest."
"Well, it seems," replied Dick, finding it, after all, an awkward subject
to talk of to a woman, "she's gone to live with that horse-breeder who's
taken Burton's farm."
"But he's a married man," said Anne, not comprehending.
"Yes, I know," said Dick, with an embarrassed laugh, but Anne did not
hear. She had understood.
"She was a good, respectable girl," she said. "However can she have
forgotten herself like that? Where's her sister Annie?"
"They do say she's nearly as bad," replied Dick. "He's rather a taking
man--good-looking and hearty, and dresses better than the farmers, and
his wife went off with a trainer too."
"Her grandmother's only been dead two years, and she's been allowed
to go wrong like that," exclaimed Anne, with condemnation of herself
in her voice.
"Well, you know,"