that she was to enter the place, aware only that it was full of pain for
her. She accused herself, but could not accept the charge of her having
ever hoped for transforming events that should twist and throw the dear
old farm-life long back into the fields of memory. Nor could she
understand the reason of her continued coolness to Robert. Enough of
accurate reflection was given her to perceive that discontent with her
station was the original cause of her discontent now. What she had sown
she was reaping:--and wretchedly colourless are these harvests of our
dream! The sun has not shone on them. They may have a tragic blood-hue,
as with Dahlia's; but they will never have any warm, and fresh, and
nourishing sweetness--the juice which is in a single blade of grass.

A longing came upon Rhoda to go and handle butter. She wished to smell
it as Mrs. Sumfit drubbed and patted and flattened and rounded it in the
dairy; and she ran down the slope, meeting her father at the gate. He
was dressed in his brushed suit, going she knew whither, and when he
asked if she had seen her uncle, she gave for answer a plain negative,
and longed more keenly to be at work with her hands, and to smell the
homely creamy air under the dairy-shed.




CHAPTER XLIV

She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane.
Her breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different
points, more and more distant, and then she sighed heavily, stopped her
breathing, and hoped her unshaped hope again. The last time he was in
sight, she found herself calling to him with a voice like that of a