letter. There, to the secret ear of the great Mother, instinct had drawn
her and her grief; and now the earliest shock was over; a dull, numb
pain of mind followed the first sorrow; unwonted exercise had made her
weary; and physical hunger, not to be stayed by mental suffering, forced
her to turn homewards. Red-eyed and unhappy she passed beside the river,
a very picture of a woful lover.

The sound of Phoebe's steps fell on John Grimbal's ear as he lay upon
his back with crossed knees and his hands behind his head. He partly
rose therefore, thrust his face above the fern, saw the wayfarer, and
then sprang to his feet. The cause of her tearful expression and
listless demeanour was known to him, but he ignored them and greeted her
cheerily.

"Can't catch anything big enough to keep, and sha'n't until the rain
comes," he said; "so I'll walk along with you, if you're going home."

He offered his hand; then, after Phoebe had shaken it, moved beside her
and put up his rod as he went.

"Saw your father this morning, and mighty glad I was to find him so
blooming. To my eye he looks younger than my memory picture of him. But
that's because I've grown from boy to man, as you have from child to
woman."

"So I have, and 't is a pity my faither doan't knaw it," answered
Phoebe, smarting under her wrongs, and willing to chronicle them in a
friendly ear. "If I ban't full woman, who is? Yet I'm treated like a
baaby, as if I'd got no 'pinions an' feelings, and wasn't--wasn't auld
enough to knaw what love meant."