Chapter II

IN WHICH THE ONION-SELLER'S DAUGHTER FOR THE FIRST TIME FEELS AS A WOMAN


For all her woodland timidity, Loveday was prone to those flashes of
temper to which the weak in defence and the strong in feeling seem
peculiarly exposed. She snatched the shielding apron back from the lap
of the buxom Cherry, stamping her foot the while. Cherry, too amazed to
protect her treasure, stared, slack-mouthed.

Primrose flew into a temper that surpassed Loveday's, already failing
her through dismay at her own action, even as the thunder, to children,
surpasses in terrifying quality the lightning.... And, had they but
known it, Primrose's sounding tantrums held as much possibility of
danger, compared with Loveday's rage, as holds the crash compared with
the flash. But they knew it not, and already Loveday stood panting a
little and spent with her own storm, while Primrose gathered herself,
undaunted, for the attack.

A hail of words would have beaten about Loveday's drooping head had not
Cherry, all unwitting, come to the rescue with a cry on the discovery
that her treasures, thus disturbed, had fallen to the ground, which was
muddy enough, owing to the habit of the cattle of trampling the soil
around the stiles.

"Oh, my fairings, my fairings!" cried Cherry, swooping at them from her