caverns and recesses, and the branches of the apple-trees against
the luminous sky. Owls were calling in the woods below; sometimes a
bell round the neck of one of the sheep tinkled a little, and the
river made a distant background of sound.

The boy's heart grew heavy. After the noises in the Grieves' room
ceased he listened for something which he knew must be in the air,
and caught it--the sound of a child's long, smothered sobs. On most
nights they would not have made much impression on him. Louie's
ways with her brother were no more engaging than with the rest of
the world; and she was not a creature who invited consolation from
anybody. David, too, with his power of escape at any time into a
world of books and dreams or simply into the wild shepherd life of
the moors, was often inclined to a vague irritation with Louie's
state of perpetual revolt. The food was nasty, their clothes were
ugly and scanty, Aunt Hannah was as hard as nails--at the same time
Louie was enough to put anybody's back up. What did she get by it?
--that was his feeling; though, perhaps, he never shaped it. He had
never felt much pity for her. She had a way of putting herself out
of court, and he was, of course, too young to see her life or his
own as a whole. What their relationship might mean to him was still
vague--to be decided by the future. Whatever softness there was in
the boy was at this moment called out by other people--by old 'Lias
and his wife; by Mr. Ancrum, the lame minister at Clough End; by
the dogs; hardly ever by Louie. He had grown used, moreover, to her
perpetual explosions, and took them generally with a boy's natural
callousness.

But to-night her woes affected him as they had never done before.
The sound of her sobbing, as he stood listening, gradually roused