VIII
RED AND YELLOW AND RIPE
“There!” said Mrs. Nye with decision, as she put away the last of the breakfast things. “An’ now not another stroke o’ work do I lay hand to, until I get Ted’s tea to-night. Come then, beauty,” as a great sandy cat came sidling round her skirts, “here’s your saucer. Mice an’ milk, milk an’ mice, that’s about all you need to want, ain’t it, Buffy? You never come out aboard ship to live in a new country about as meller as a new potater, an’ with its months all hupside down; you don’t need to ’ave no hankerin’s. Call this Hapril!” she said with a sudden little burst of scorn. “W’en it’s as soft a September day as ever I see . . . with the wind so sleepin’, an’ the sky as blue as blue, an’ the sun that ripenin’ it do seem a sin there ain’t nothin’ ’ere for it to ripe—only this cold old Hocean, what
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