no fresh torment for David; besides, she knew that she was
observed. She had destroyed all the scanty store of primroses along
the brook; gathered rushes, begun to plait them, and thrown them
away; she had found a grouse's nest among the dead fern, and,
contrary to the most solemn injunctions of uncle and keeper,
enforced by the direst threats, had purloined and broken an egg;
and still dinner-time delayed. Perhaps, too, the cold blighting
wind, which soon made her look blue and pinched, tamed her
insensibly. At any rate, she got up after about an hour, and coolly
walked across to David.

He looked up at her with a quick frown. But she sat down, and,
clasping her hands round her knees, while the primroses she had
stuck in her hat dangled over her defiant eyes, she looked at him
with a grinning composure.

'Yo can read out if yo want to,' she remarked.

'Yo doan't deserve nowt, an I shan't,' said David, shortly.

'Then I'll tell Aunt Hannah about how yo let t' lambs stray lasst
evenin, and about yor readin at neet.'

'Yo may tell her aw t' tallydiddles yo can think on,' was the
unpromising reply.

Louie threw all the scorn possible into her forced smile, and then,
dropping full-length into the heather, she began to sing at the top
of a shrill, unpleasing voice, mainly, of course, for the sake of
harrying anyone in her neighbourhood who might wish to read.