'I suppose I was a bit rough, but she ought to have forgotten that by
now. I do wish she wouldn't keep on so about the parson.'

He ran upstairs.

'Sorry I was rough, Hazel,' he said shamefacedly.

Hazel stood at the open window in a nightdress that she had found in
one of the chests--a frail, yellowish thing with many frills of
cobwebby lace made and worn by some dead woman on a forgotten bridal.
It was symbolic of Hazel's whole life that she came in this way both to
Undern and the Mountain--as bare of woman's regalia as a winter leaf is
of substance.

Hazel was speaking when he entered. He stood still, astonished and
suspicious.

'Who are you talking to?' he asked.

She turned. 'Him above,' she said. 'I was saying the prayer Ed'ard
learnt me. I said it three times, it being Midsummer, and ghosses going
to-and-agen and the death-pack about. He'll be bound to hearken to
Ed'ard's prayer.'

She looked small and pitiful standing in the flickering candlelight.
She turned again to the window, and Reddin went downstairs, quite
overwhelmed and abashed.

The house seemed eerier than ever, full of subdued complaints and
whisperings. The faces of the roses round the window were woe-begone in