She went to the window.  “How lovely the garden is!  Come out on the lawn, Maryllia, and let us talk!” And as they sauntered across the grass together with arms round each other’s waists, she chattered on—­“People who write books and music are generally lonely,—­and they write best about love because they need it.  They fancy it must be much better than it is.  But, after all, the grandest things go unloved.  Look at the sky, how clear it is and pure.  Is it loved by any other sky that we know of?  And the sun up there, all alone in its splendour,—­I wonder if any other sun loves it?  There are so many lonely things in the universe!  And it seems to me that the loneliest are always the loveliest and grandest.  It is only stupid ephemera that are gregarious.  Worms crawl along in masses,—­mites swarm in a cheese—­flies stick in crowds on jam—­and brainless people shut themselves up all together within the walls of a city.  I’d rather be an eagle than a sparrow,—­a star than one of a thousand bonfire sparks,—­and as a mere woman, I would rather ten thousand times live a solitary life by myself till I die, than be married to a rascal or a fool!”

“Exactly my sentiments,”—­said Maryllia—­“Only you put them more poetically than I can.  Do you know, Cicely, you talk very oddly sometimes?—­very much in advance of your age, I mean?”

“Do I?” And Cicely’s tone expressed a mingling of surprise and penitence—­“I didn’t know it.  But I suppose I really can’t help it, Maryllia!  I was a very miserable child—­and miserable children age rapidly.  Perhaps I shall get younger as I grow older!  You must remember that at eleven years old I was scrubbing floors like any charwoman in the Convent for two centimes an hour.  I gained a lot of worldly wisdom that way by listening to the talk of the nuns, which is quite as spiteful and scandalous as anything one hears in outside ‘wicked’ society.  Then I got into the Quartier Latin set with Gigue, who picked me up because he heard me singing in the street,—­and altogether my experiences of life haven’t been toys and bonbons.  I know I think ’old’—­and I’m sure I feel old!”

“Not when you play or sing,” suggested Maryllia.

“No—­not then—­never then!  Then, all the youth of the world seems to rush into me,—­it tingles in my fingers, and throbs in my throat!  I feel as if I could reach heaven with sound!—­yes!  I feel that I could sing to God Himself, if He would only listen!”

Her eyes glowed with passion,—­the plainness of her features was transformed into momentary beauty.  Maryllia was silent.  She knew that the aspirations of genius pent up in this elf-like girl were almost too strong for her, and that the very excitability and sensitiveness of her nature were such as to need the greatest care and tenderness in training and controlling.  Tactfully she changed the conversation to ordinary subjects, and in a little while Cicely had learned all that Maryllia herself knew about the village of St. Rest and its inhabitants.  She was considerably interested in the story of the rescue of the ‘Five Sister’ beeches, and asked with a touch of anxiety, what had become of the dismissed agent, Oliver Leach?