Читать книгу The Mean-Wells онлайн

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“Oh, I wish you had!” cried Loveday. “Wouldn’t it have been funny: Chatterpie Jane Carlyon? Now, Prissy, do make Betsy stop; we have come to the very top. It is quite flat here.”

“I am going to draw up near that gate,” said Priscilla firmly, “so that I can smell the charlock in that field.”

“That horrid weed!” said Dr. Carlyon. “You surely don’t like that? Whoa, Betsy!” And without much coaxing Betsy came to a standstill by the gate of the field where the charlock grew.

“I love it,” said Priscilla, drawing in deep breaths of the charlock-scented air; “it always reminds me of—of—oh, something—drives, and nice things, and sunny days, and the day you gave me ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales,’ father.”

“I will get down now,” said her father, “then you must slip up on to the box-seat, and I will get up on the other side and take Loveday on my lap.”

Priscilla was delighted. She did not say much, but she was in a perfect rapture of joy at being given the box-seat, and allowed to drive on the level, and even downhill. She had never done so much before, and she thought she should never, never forget this happy day. She longed to get down and hug Betsy, and pat her as her father was doing. Instead, she looked up at the darting, thrilling larks, and sniffed in the smell of the charlock. It could not really have been the scent that she loved, but the associations it had, and the thoughts it brought to her; and she felt that she should love it more than ever after this day.