mal, forgetting both her father
and her cousin.

"Yes, I'm ready," she said, taking sixpence from the heap of
money and sliding the rest back into the purse, which she laid
on the table.

"Give it here," said her father.

Hastily she thrust the purse into his pocket and was going
out.

"You'd better go wi' 'em, lad, hadn't you?" said the father
to the nephew.

Will Brangwen rose uncertainly. He had golden-brown, quick,
steady eyes, like a bird's, like a hawk's, which cannot look
afraid.

"Your Cousin Will 'll come with you," said the father.

Anna glanced at the strange youth again. She felt him waiting
there for her to notice him. He was hovering on the edge of her
consciousness, ready to come in. She did not want to look at
him. She was antagonistic to him.

She waited without speaking. Her cousin took his hat and
joined her. It was summer outside. Her brother Fred was plucking
a sprig of flowery currant to put in his coat, from the bush at
the angle of the house. She took no notice. Her cousin followed
just behind her.

They were on the high road. She was aware of a strangeness in
her being. It made her uncertain. She caught sight of the
flowering currant in her brother's buttonhole.

"Oh, our Fred," she cried. "Don't wear that stuff to go to
church."

Fred looked down protectively at the pink adornment on his
breast.

"Why, I like it," he said.

"Then you're the only one who does, I'm sure," she said.

And she turned to her cousin.

"Do you like the smell of it?" she asked.

He was there beside her, tall and uncouth and yet
self-possessed. It excited her.

"I can't say whether I do or not," he replied.

"Give it here, Fred, don't have it smelling in church," she
said to the little boy, her page.

Her fair, small brother handed her the flower dutifully. She
sniffed it and gave it without a word to her cousin, for his
judgment. He smelled the dangling flower curiously.

"It's a funny smell," he said.

And suddenly she laughed, and a quick light came on all their
faces, there was a blithe trip in the small boy's walk.

The bells were ringing, they were going up the summery hill
in their Sunday clothes. Anna was very fine in a silk frock of
brown and white stripes, tight along the arms and the body,
bunched up very elegantly behind the skirt. There was something
of the cavalier about Will Brangwen, and he was well
dressed.

He walked along with the sprig of currant-blossom dangling