watching, fell into a brown study.

"There!" she exclaimed, straightening herself upon her knees as the
blaze caught. "Is that a good omen for Kelstein?"

Her eyes were on the sticks, and in their crackling she did not
listen for his answer, but commanded him to take a pitcher of water
and pour, while she mixed and kneaded the meal. To the making of
bread, cakes, pastry, Hetty brought a born gift; a hand so light,
quick, and cool, that Johnny could have groaned for his own fumbling
fingers. A dozen cakes were finished and banked in the wood-ashes as
the fire died down to a steadily glowing mass. By this time the
landscape about them lay flat to the eye and gray, touched with the
faint gold of moonrise, and just then Emilia called down from the
mound that the travellers were in sight on the Bawtry road.

The others ran to meet them: but Hetty remained by her task, silent,
and Johnny silent beside her. Together they spread the two meals,
one beside the fire for the family, the other some fifty yards off
for the harvesters, now moving towards the rick-yard with the last
load.

Hetty was not her mother's favourite. Emilia and Patty divided that
honour by consent, though the balance appeared now and then to
incline towards Patty. But between Mrs. Wesley and her fairest
daughter there rested always a shadow of restraint, curious enough in
its origin, which was that they knew each other better than the rest.
Often and quite casually Hetty would guess some thought in her
mother's mind hidden from her sisters. She made no parade of this
insight, set up no claim upon it; merely gave proof of it in passing,