always well off, and has never done anything, and shows marks of the lady
on her, as I expect she do.'

'Yes.'

They crept up the hill in the twilight, and entered the cottage. It was
built of mud-walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains
into channels and depressions that left none of the original flat face
visible; while here and there in the thatch above a rafter showed like a
bone protruding through the skin.

She was kneeling down in the chimney-corner, before two pieces of turf
laid together with the heather inwards, blowing at the red-hot ashes with
her breath till the turves flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek, and
made her dark eyes, that had once been handsome, seem handsome anew.
'Yes,' she resumed, 'see if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice
if her hands be white; if not, see if they look as though she had ever
done housework, or are milker's hands like mine.'

The boy again promised, inattentively this time, his mother not observing
that he was cutting a notch with his pocket-knife in the beech-backed
chair.



CHAPTER II--THE YOUNG WIFE


The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level; but there is
one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers homeward-