suppose that is all gibberish to you?"

"Iss, so it be," she admitted.

"Learn to love everything that is beautiful, my good child. But I think you
do, unconsciously perhaps."

"I don't take much 'count of things."
"Yes, unconsciously. You have a cowslip there stuck in your frock, though
where you got it from I can't imagine. The flower is a month too early."

"Iss, 'tis, I found en in a lew, sunshiny plaace. Us have got a frame for
growin' things under glass, an' it had bin put down 'pon top this cowslip
an' drawed 'en up."

"Will you give it to me?"

She did so, and he smelled it.

"D'you know that the green of the cowslip is the most beautiful green in
all Nature, Joan? Here, I have a flower, too; we will exchange if you
like."

He took a scrap of blackthorn bloom from his coat and held it out to her,
but she shrank backward and he learned something.

"Please not that--truly 'tis the dreadfulest wicked flower. Doan't 'e arsk
I to take en."

"Unlucky?"