She was standing in a sunny road, with one foot on
a white painted wooden gate, upon which she had evidently
been swinging. The gate opened into a large garden,
and before her lay a broad path planted on either
side with tall, pointed cypress trees, their thin shadows
lying across the walk like black bars. Between
the trees ran narrow flower-beds, and beyond these
stretched a wide, open space, so solidly spread with
yellow dandelions that it looked as though the golden
floor of heaven had come to rest upon earth. The
path, with its sentinel trees, led straight as a rod
to a distant house, long and low, surrounded by a
vine-covered veranda. There were strange, sweet
smells in the air, which felt soft and warm. The
sky was brilliantly blue, and on the fence across
the road a gorgeous parrot sat preening its feathers
in the sunshine.
Mollie looked about her with curious eyes, wondering
where she was. Not in England, of that she was
sure—there was a different feel in the
air, colours were brighter, scents were stronger, and
that radiant parrot would never perch itself so tranquilly
upon an English fence.
Then she saw, coming down the path, a girl of about
her own age, dressed in a brown-holland overall trimmed
with red braid, high to the throat, and belted round
the waist. She wore no hat, and her hair fell
over her shoulders in plump brown curls. By her
side paced a large dog, a rough-haired black-and-white
collie with sagacious brown eyes. He leapt forward
with a short bark, but the girl laid a restraining
hand on his back:
“Down, Laddie, down,” she said, “don’t
you know a friend when you see one? Come in,
Mollie.”
And suddenly Mollie knew where she was. This
was Adelaide, in Australia; that was the child in
the photograph, whose name, she knew, was Prudence
Campbell; and they were living in the year 1878.
CHAPTER II
The Builders or The Little House
Mollie left the white gate, which swung behind her
with a sharp click, and walked up the path towards
Prudence. Laddie circled round with a few inquiring
sniffs, decided that the newcomer was harmless, and
stood blinking his eyes in the sunlight, his bushy
tail waving slowly from side to side. Prudence
slid an arm through Mollie’s.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,”
she said. “Hugh’s little house is
all but finished, and he promised to let us up to-day.
Let’s go and sit beside Grizzel till he calls.”
Mollie’s eyes followed the turn of Prue’s
head, and she saw a younger child seated upon the
golden floor beyond the flower-beds. This child
wore an overall of bright blue cotton, shaped like
Prue’s, and her head was covered with short red
curls, which shone in the sun like burnished copper.
Prudence frowned a little as she looked at her sister:
“How Grizzel can sit in the middle of that yellow,
dressed in that blue, with that red hair, I can’t
think,” she said. “She calls herself
an artist, but it simply puts my teeth on edge.
Did you ever see anything so ugly?”
