Page 154 - sons-and-lovers

stocks to smell like it!’ And, to his great relief, she moved
out of the doorway, but only to stand in front of the win-
dow.
‘Paul!’ she cried to him, who was trying to get out of sight
of the elegant young lady in black—the shop-girl. ‘Paul! Just
look here!’
He came reluctantly back.
‘Now, just look at that fuchsia!’ she exclaimed, pointing.
‘H’m!’ He made a curious, interested sound. ‘You’d think
every second as the flowers was going to fall off, they hang
so big an’ heavy.’
‘And such an abundance!’ she cried.
‘And the way they drop downwards with their threads
and knots!’
‘Yes!’ she exclaimed. ‘Lovely!’
‘I wonder who’ll buy it!’ he said.
‘I wonder!’ she answered. ‘Not us.’
‘It would die in our parlour.’
‘Yes, beastly cold, sunless hole; it kills every bit of a plant
you put in, and the kitchen chokes them to death.’
They bought a few things, and set off towards the station.
Looking up the canal, through the dark pass of the build-
ings, they saw the Castle on its bluff of brown, green-bushed
rock, in a positive miracle of delicate sunshine.
‘Won’t it be nice for me to come out at dinner-times?’
said Paul. ‘I can go all round here and see everything. I s’ll
love it.’
‘You will,’ assented his mother.
He had spent a perfect afternoon with his mother. They

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