gazed obediently where her mistress gazed, and was touched with the
same fierce beauty. They stood there fronting the crimson pools over
the far hills, two small sentient things facing destiny with pathetic
courage; they had, in the chill evening on the lonely hill, a look as
of those predestined to grief, almost an air of martyrdom.

The small clouds that went westward took each in its turn the
prevailing colour, and vanished, dipped in blood.

From the cottage, as Hazel went down the path, came the faint thrumming
of the harp, changing as she reached the door to the air of 'The Ash
Grove.' The cottage was very low, one-storied, and roofed with red
corrugated iron. The three small windows had frames coloured with
washing-blue and frills of crimson cotton within. There seemed scarcely
room for even Hazel's small figure. The house was little larger than a
good pigsty, and only the trail of smoke from its squat chimney showed
that humanity dwelt there.

Hazel gave Foxy her supper and put her to bed in the old washtub where
she slept. Then she went into the cottage with an armful of logs from
the wood heap. She threw them on the open fire.

'I'm a-cold,' she said; 'the rain's cleared, and there'll be a duck's
frost to-night.'

Abel looked up absently, humming the air he intended to play next.

'I bin in the Callow, and I've gotten a primmyrose,' continued Hazel,
accustomed to his ways, and not discouraged. 'And I got a bit of
blackthorn, white as a lady.'