She had shut her
eyes tight and glued them with passionate tears. When she opened them
something very cold ran up her legs and up her arms and dropped into
her heart. It was the stillness of the Gardens. Then she heard
clang, then from another part _clang_, then _clang_, _clang_ far away.
It was the Closing of the Gates.
Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie distinctly heard a
voice say, "So that's all right." It had a wooden sound and seemed to
come from above, and she looked up in time to see an elm tree
stretching out its arms and yawning.
She was about to say, "I never knew you could speak!" when a metallic
voice that seemed to come from the ladle at the well remarked to the
elm, "I suppose it is a bit coldish up there?" and the elm replied,
"Not particularly, but you do get numb standing so long on one leg,"
and he flapped his arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they
drive off. Maimie was quite surprised to see that a number of other
tall trees were doing the same sort of thing and she stole away to the
Baby Walk and crouched observantly under a Minorca Holly which
shrugged its shoulders but did not seem to mind her.
She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russet-coloured
pelisse and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed
except her dear little face and her curls. The rest of her real self
was hidden far away inside so many warm garments that in shape she
seemed rather like a ball.
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