e to gather them. I will sit down and wait for thy
return; and, if we hasten our steps hereafter, we shall not be much
delayed.'

Little Mary Samm glanced up with a joyful smile. She had espied the
few, first, faint windflowers as soon as she entered the wood; but,
without her aunt's permission, it would never have entered her head to
suggest that she might gather them. For Mary was a carefully trained
(not to say primly brought up) little maiden of the seventeenth
century, when children followed their elders' injunctions in all
things, without daring to dwell on their own wishes. If Joan Dewsbury
had been an artist she would have enjoyed watching the child's slim
little upright figure stepping daintily over the rustling brown beech
leaves, between the rounded trunks of the grey trees. The air was full
of the promise of early spring. A cold blue sky showed through the
lattice work of twigs and branches; but, as yet, no fluttering leaf
had crept out of its sheath to soften, with a hint of tender green,
the virginal stiffness and straightness of the stems. Grey among the
grey tree-trunks little Mary flitted about, gathering her precious
windflowers. She was clad in the demure Puritan dress worn by young
and old alike in the early days of the Society of Friends. A frock of
grey duffel hung in straight lines around her slight figure; a cape of
the same material was drawn closely round her shoulders, while a grey
bonnet framed the pensive face. A strange unchildlike face it was,
small and pinched, with a high, narrow forehead and sharply pointed
chin. There were no childish roses in the pale cheeks. A very faint
flush of pink, caused by fresh air and unwonted exercise, could not
disguise the curious yellow tinge of the skin, like old parchment
that has been kept too long from the light of day. Only the tips of a
few locks of light brown hair, cut very short and straight round the
ears, were visible under the close, tightly-fitting bonnet.

[Illustration: PALE WINDFLOWERS]

'An ugly little girl, in perfectly hideous clothes,' modern children
might have said if they had seen Mary Samm for the first time, looking
down at her windflowers, though even then there was a hint of beauty
in the long, curved, black eyelashes that lay quietly on the pale
cheeks, and a very sweet expression hovered round the corners of the
firm, delicate, little mouth. But no one who could have seen little
Mary running back to her aunt with her precio