hiss into the pool.

At one side of the pool rough steps built of clods enabled everyone who
wished to do so to mount the bank; which the woman did. Within was a
paddock in an uncultivated state, though bearing evidence of having once
been tilled; but the heath and fern had insidiously crept in, and were
reasserting their old supremacy. Further ahead were dimly visible an
irregular dwelling-house, garden, and outbuildings, backed by a clump of
firs.

The young lady--for youth had revealed its presence in her buoyant bound
up the bank--walked along the top instead of descending inside, and came
to the corner where the fire was burning. One reason for the permanence
of the blaze was now manifest: the fuel consisted of hard pieces of
wood, cleft and sawn--the knotty boles of old thorn trees which grew in
twos and threes about the hillsides. A yet unconsumed pile of these lay
in the inner angle of the bank; and from this corner the upturned face
of a little boy greeted her eyes. He was dilatorily throwing up a piece
of wood into the fire every now and then, a business which seemed to
have engaged him a considerable part of the evening, for his face was
somewhat weary.

"I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia," he said, with a sigh of
relief. "I don't like biding by myself."

"Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been gone
only twenty minutes."

"It seemed long," murmured the sad boy. "And you have been so many
times."