It was hard work pretending that Emily didn't look like Mrs. Spinker.



II


She had a belief that her father's house was nicer than other people's
houses. It stood off from the high road, in Black's Lane, at the head of
the town. You came to it by a row of tall elms standing up along Mr.
Hancock's wall. Behind the last tree its slender white end went straight
up from the pavement, hanging out a green balcony like a bird cage above
the green door.

The lane turned sharp there and went on, and the long brown garden wall
went with it. Behind the wall the lawn flowed down from the white house
and the green veranda to the cedar tree at the bottom. Beyond the lawn was
the kitchen garden, and beyond the kitchen garden the orchard; little
crippled apple trees bending down in the long grass.

She was glad to come back to the house after the walk with Eliza, the
nurse, or Annie, the housemaid; to go through all the rooms looking for
Mimi; looking for Mamma, telling her what had happened.

"Mamma, the red-haired woman in the sweetie shop has got a little baby,
and its hair's red, too.... Some day I shall have a little baby. I shall
dress him in a long gown-----"

"Robe."