Ellen was leaning out of the window now, admiring her beloved plants, smoothing over the earth with her fingers, and tidying away any dead leaves, and all the time she was doing it she talked to the plants just as though they could hear her and understand. She picked a leaf of the scenty geranium and offered it to Priscilla, who took it gratefully, for she loved the scent, and Ellen was not often so generous.
It was too hot in the yard to remain there long, and too dull, so Priscilla presently wandered away to the orchard beyond. The orchard was on the slope of the hill at the back of the house, and was full of very old apple-trees. Each of the children had a favourite tree, and a favourite seat in it. Priscilla clambered up to hers, and sat there for a few moments, sniffing at her geranium leaf and looking about her rather disconsolately; it was so stupid and uninteresting to be there alone, yet nothing else seemed worth doing by herself, and what had become of Geoffrey she did not know.
“I don’t wonder Miss Potts is sorry she has no brothers or sisters; it must be dreadful to be always without any. I wonder how little ‘only’ girls and boys play? They can’t ever have such nice games as we have.”
She sat up amongst the branches, gazing down through the shady trees, pondering over this matter and sniffing at her leaf; and all her life after, the scent of those geraniums brought back to her mind the sunny day, Loveday’s tooth-pulling, Miss Potts, the old orchard, and the serious mood she was in there.
Presently the sound of horses’ hoofs on rough cobble-stones reached her. “That must be Betsy being harnessed,” she murmured, beginning at once to climb down; “I wonder if father is going out?”
Priscilla’s love of horses was, then and always, one of the passions of her life, and of all horses Betsy was the queen. She hurried through the orchard now to speak to Betsy, and to see what was happening. In the yard she found Hocking, their man, wheeling the carriage out of the coach-house, and Betsy standing, partly harnessed, looking on. At the sound of Priscilla’s step she looked around, and Priscilla, running to her, embraced one of her legs and kissed her soft warm shoulder.