hand on the side of the cart, and walked slowly by it down the
road. Once, looking at the girl, she thought with a half smile
how oddly clean she was. The flannel skirt she arranged so
complacently had been washed until the colours had run madly into
each other in sheer desperation; her hair was knotted with
relentless tightness into a comb such as old women wear. The
very cart, patched as it was, had a snug, cosy look; the masses
of vegetables, green and crimson and scarlet, were heaped with a
certain reference to the glow of colour, Margret noticed,
wondering if it were accidental. Looking up, she saw the girl's
brown eyes fixed on her face. They were singularly soft,
brooding brown.

"Ye 'r' goin' to th' mill, Miss Marg'et?" she asked, in a half
whisper.

"Yes. You never go there now, Lois?"

"No, 'm."

The girl shuddered, and then tried to hide it in a laugh.
Margret walked on beside her, her hand on the cart's edge.
Somehow this creature, that Nature had thrown impatiently aside
as a failure, so marred, imperfect, that even the dogs were kind
to her, came strangely near to her, claimed recognition by some
subtile instinct.

Partly for this, and partly striving to forget herself, she
glanced furtively at the childish face of the distorted little
body, wondering what impression the shifting dawn made on the