The Rainbow

"Give it here," said her father.

Hastily she thrust the purse into his pocket and was going

out.

"You'd better go wi' 'em, lad, hadn't you?" said the father

to the nephew.

Will Brangwen rose uncertainly. He had golden-brown, quick,

steady eyes, like a bird's, like a hawk's, which cannot look

afraid.

"Your Cousin Will 'll come with you," said the father.

Anna glanced at the strange youth again. She felt him waiting

there for her to notice him. He was hovering on the edge of her

consciousness, ready to come in. She did not want to look at

him. She was antagonistic to him.

She waited without speaking. Her cousin took his hat and

joined her. It was summer outside. Her brother Fred was plucking

a sprig of flowery currant to put in his coat, from the bush at

the angle of the house. She took no notice. Her cousin followed

just behind her.

They were on the high road. She was aware of a strangeness in

her being. It made her uncertain. She caught sight of the

flowering currant in her brother's buttonhole.

"Oh, our Fred," she cried. "Don't wear that stuff to go to

church."

Fred looked down protectively at the pink adornment on his

breast.

"Why, I like it," he said.

"Then you're the only one who does, I'm sure," she said.

And she turned to her cousin.

"Do you like the smell of it?" she asked.

He was there beside her, tall and uncouth and yet

self-possessed. It excited her.

"I can't say whether I do or not," he replied.

"Give it here, Fred, don't have it smelling in church," she

said to the little boy, her page.

Her fair, small brother handed her the flower dutifully. She

sniffed it and gave it without a word to her cousin, for his

judgment. He smelled the dangling flower curiously.

"It's a funny smell," he said.

And suddenly she laughed, and a quick light came on all their

faces, there was a blithe trip in the small boy's walk.

The bells were ringing, they were going up the summery hill

in their Sunday clothes. Anna was very fine in a silk frock of

brown and white stripes, tight along the arms and the body,

bunched up very elegantly behind the skirt. There was something

of the cavalier about Will Brangwen, and he was well

dressed.

He walked along with the sprig of currant-blossom dangling

between his fingers, and none of them spoke. The sun shone

brightly on little showers of buttercup down the bank, in the

fields the fool's-parsley was foamy, held very high and proud

above a number of flowers that flitted in the greenish twilight

of the mowing-grass below.

They reached the church. Fred led the way to the pew,

followed by the cousin, then Anna. She felt very conspicuous and

important. Somehow, this young man gave her away to other

people. He stood aside and let her pass to her place, then sat

next to her. It was a curious sensation, to sit next to him.