"Iss, iss; be very mild, my sons, as 'tis so holy a day."

They tramped on, bending their heads at queer angles against the
weather, that erased their outlines in a bluish mist, through which they
loomed for a while at intervals, until they passed out of sight.

Ruby, meanwhile, had hurried on, her cloak flapping loudly as it grew
heavier with moisture, and the water in her shoes squishing at every
step. At first she took the road leading down-hill to Ruan Cove, but
turned to the right after a few yards, and ran up the muddy lane that
was the one approach to Sheba, her father's farm.

The house, a square, two-storeyed building of greystone, roofed with
heavy slates, was guarded in front by a small courtlage, the wall of
which blocked all view from the lower rooms. From the narrow mullioned
windows on the upper floor, however, one could look over it upon the
duck-pond across the road, and down across two grass meadows to the
cove. A white gate opened on the courtlage, and the path from this to
the front door was marked out by slabs of blue slate, accurately laid in
line. Ruby, in her present bedraggled state, avoided the front
entrance, and followed the wall round the house to the town-place,
stopping on her way to look in at the kitchen window.

"Mary Jane, if you call that a roast goose, I cull it a burning shame!"

Mary Jane, peeling potatoes with her back to the window, and tossing
them one by one into a bucket of water, gave a jump, and cut her finger,
dropping forthwith a half-peeled magnum bonum, which struck the bucket's
edge and slid away across the slate flooring under the table.