'Here's a store, mother--I need not go out,' said Hal, passing to a
pile in the corner. 'It is too dark for thee to see it.'

'But where was your castle?' continued the girl. 'I am sure you have
lived in a castle.'

Insensibly the two children had in addressing one another changed the
homely singular pronoun to the more polite, if less grammatical,
second person plural. The boy laughed, nodded his head, and said,
'You are a little witch.'

'No great witchcraft to hear that you speak as we do at home in
Bedfordshire, not like these northern boors, that might as well be
Scots!'

'I am not from Bedfordshire,' said the lad, looking much amused at
her perplexity.

'Who art thou then?' she cried peremptorily.

'I? I am Hal the shepherd boy, as I told thee before.'

'No shepherd boy are you! Come, tell me true.'

Dolly thought it time to interfere. She heard an imaginary bleat,
and ordered Hal out to see what was the matter, hindering the girl by
force from running after him, for the snow was coming down in larger
flakes than ever. Nevertheless, when her husband was heard outside
she threw a cloak over her head and hurried out to speak with him.