Mildenham--to carols in the Christmas dark, to certain hymns, and one
special "Nunc Dimittis" in the village church, attended with a hopeless
regularity; to the horn of the hunter far out in the quivering, dripping
coverts; even to Markey's whistling, which was full and strangely sweet.

He could share her love of dogs and horses, take an anxious interest
in her way of catching bumblebees in the hollow of her hand and putting
them to her small, delicate ears to hear them buzz, sympathize with her
continual ravages among the flowerbeds, in the old-fashioned garden,
full of lilacs and laburnums in spring, pinks, roses, cornflowers in
summer, dahlias and sunflowers in autumn, and always a little neglected
and overgrown, a little squeezed in, and elbowed by the more important
surrounding paddocks. He could sympathize with her attempts to draw
his attention to the song of birds; but it was simply not in him to
understand how she loved and craved for music. She was a cloudy little
creature, up and down in mood--rather like a brown lady spaniel that
she had, now gay as a butterfly, now brooding as night. Any touch of
harshness she took to heart fearfully. She was the strangest compound
of pride and sell-disparagement; the qualities seemed mixed in her so
deeply that neither she nor any one knew of which her cloudy fits were
the result. Being so sensitive, she "fancied" things terribly. Things
that others did to her, and thought nothing of, often seemed to her
conclusive evidence that she was not loved by anybody, which was
dreadfully unjust, because she wanted to love everyone--nearly. Then
suddenly she would feel: "If they don't love me, I don't care. I don't
want anything of anybody!" Presently, all would blow away just like a
cloud, and she would love and be gay, until something fresh, perhaps not
at all meant to hurt her, would again hurt her horribly. In reality,
the whole household loved and admired her. But she was one of those
delicate-treading beings, born with a skin too few, who--and especially