CHAPTER IV
It was what Mrs. Barnard, of Riding Wood Farm, called her lazy afternoon. Tired after her day's work, which began at five, she loved Saturday afternoon, which she devoted—from three o'clock till six—more or less to her week's mending. "More or less" because there was tea to get, and other little things invariably turned up to be done. Besides, those among Mrs. Barnard's friends who could take their freedom on Saturday afternoons, often dropped in for a gossip then, or to ask advice from the farmer's wife, a wise and large-hearted woman whose ruddy apple face beamed with kindness for all the world. "It's easy to be kind to folks, when you're happy yourself," she said; and Mrs. Barnard was happy. She loved her home and her work and her friends. She thought her silent, reserved husband, who had been a soldier, the best man living, and adored her one child, Margaret, known to those whom it concerned as Poppet.
While Mrs. Barnard mended the socks of Thomas, her husband and Poppet, her daughter, the little girl sat in a low chair beside her mother in what they called "the arbour," sewing doll's clothes. The arbour was a kind of rough, rustic pergola, which Tom Barnard
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