boy, whom she always supposed to be about some mischief except he
were in her own presence and visibly reading a book: if he were
reading aloud, so much the better. But Robert likewise kept a rod
for his defence, and that was Betty's age, which he had discovered
to be such a precious secret that one would have thought her virtue
depended in some cabalistic manner upon the concealment of it. And,
certainly, nature herself seemed to favour Betty's weakness, casting
such a mist about the number of her years as the goddesses of old
were wont to cast about a wounded favourite; for some said Betty was
forty, others said she was sixty-five, and, in fact, almost
everybody who knew her had a different belief on the matter.

By this time Robert had conquered the difficulty of induing boots as
hard as a thorough wetting and as thorough a drying could make them,
and now stood prepared to go. His object in setting out was to find
the boy whom his grandmother had driven from the door with a hastier
and more abject flight than she had in the least intended. But, if
his grandmother should miss him, as Betty suggested, and inquire
where he had been, what was he to say? He did not mind misleading
his grannie, but he had a great objection to telling her a lie. His
grandmother herself delivered him from this difficulty.

'Robert, come here,' she called from the parlour door. And Robert
obeyed.

'Is 't dingin' on, Robert?' she asked.

'No, grannie; it's only a starnie o' drift.'

The meaning of this was that there was no fresh snow falling, or