At the bottom of the orchard a door in the wall opened into Black's Lane,
below the three tall elms.

She couldn't believe she was really walking there by herself. It had come
all of a sudden, the thought that she _must_ do it, that she
_must_ go out into the lane; and when she found the door unlatched,
something seemed to take hold of her and push her out. She was forbidden
to go into Black's Lane; she was not even allowed to walk there with
Annie.

She kept on saying to herself: "I'm in the lane. I'm in the lane. I'm
disobeying Mamma."

Nothing could undo that. She had disobeyed by just standing outside the
orchard door. Disobedience was such a big and awful thing that it was
waste not to do something big and awful with it. So she went on, up and
up, past the three tall elms. She was a big girl, wearing black silk
aprons and learning French. Walking by herself. When she arched her back
and stuck her stomach out she felt like a tall lady in a crinoline and
shawl. She swung her hips and made her skirts fly out. That was her
grown-up crinoline, swing-swinging as she went.

At the turn the cow's parsley and rose campion began; on each side a long
trail of white froth with the red tops of the campion pricking through.
She made herself a nosegay.

Past the second turn you came to the waste ground covered with old boots
and rusted, crumpled tins. The little dirty brown house stood there behind
the rickety blue palings; narrow, like the piece of a house that has been