promises us the key. Then we run after him into the stillness, and are
heard no more.

Hazel and her father practised hard through the dark, wet evenings. She
was to sing 'Harps in Heaven,' a song her mother had taught her. He was
to accompany the choir, or glee-party, that met together at different
places, coming from the villages and hillsides of a wide stretch of
country.

'Well,' said Abel on the morning of their final rehearsal, 'it's a
miserable bit of a silly song, but you mun make the best of it. Give it
voice, girl! Dunna go to sing it like a mouse in milk!'

His musical taste was offended by Hazel's way of being more dramatic
than musical. She would sink her voice in the sad parts almost to a
whisper, and then rise to a kind of keen.

'You'm like nought but Owen's old sheep-dog,' he said, 'wowing the
moon!'

But Hazel's idea of music continued to be that of a bird. She was a
wild thing, and she sang according to instinct, and not by rule, though
her good ear kept her notes true.

They set out early, for they had a good walk in front of them, and the
April sun was hot. Hazel, under the pale green larch-trees, in her
bright dress, with her crown of tawny hair, seemed to be an incarnation
of the secret woods.

Abel strode ahead in his black cut-away coat, snuff-coloured trousers,