"No, please. It is not unkindness; but I must think it over by
myself,--by myself," Mary cried. She hurried away, while Mrs. Bowyer took
another survey of the outer room, and called the servant to know who had
been calling. Nobody had been calling, the maid said; but her mistress
still shook her head.

"It must have been some one who does not ring, who just opens the door,"
she said to herself. "That is the worst of the country. It might be Mrs.
Blunt, or Sophia Blackburn, or the curate, or half-a-dozen people,--and
they have just gone away when they heard me crying. How could I help
crying? But I wonder how much they heard, whoever it was."




VI.


It was winter, and snow was on the ground.

Lady Mary found herself on the road that led through her own village,
going home. It was like a picture of a wintry night,--like one of those
pictures that please the children at Christmas. A little snow sprinkled
on the roofs, just enough to define them, and on the edges of the roads;
every cottage window showing a ruddy glimmer in the twilight; the men
coming home from their work; the children, tied up in comforters and
caps, stealing in from the slides, and from the pond, where they were
forbidden to go; and, in the distance, the trees of the great House
standing up dark, turning the twilight into night. She had a curious