for the missus. She was down the garden, and I've half a notion he went
after her. I wish you'd go and look for her, Master Jack, and fetch her
in. It's as damp as dear knows what, and she takes no more care of
herself than a baby. And I'd be glad to know that man was off the place.
There's wall-fruit and lots of things about, a low fellow like that
might pick up."

My ears felt a little hot at this allusion to low fellows and garden
thieving, and I hurried off to do Mary Anne's bidding without further
parley. There was a cloud over the moon as I ran down the back garden,
but when I was nearly at the end the moon burst forth again, so that I
could see. And this is what I saw:--

First, a white thing lying on the ground, and it was the widow's cap,
and then Mrs. Wood herself, with a gaunt lanky-looking man, such as Mary
Anne had described. Her head came nearly to his shoulder, as I was well
able to judge, for he was holding it in his hands and had laid his own
upon it, as if it were a natural resting-place. And his hair coming
against the darker part of hers, I could see that his was grey all over.
Up to this point I had been too much stupefied to move, and I had just
become conscious that I ought to go, when the white cap lying in the
moonlight seemed to catch his eye as it had caught mine; and he set his
heel on it with a vehemence that made me anxious to be off. I could not
resist one look back as I left the garden, if only to make sure that I
had not been dreaming. No, they were there still, and he was lifting the
coil of her hair, which I suppose had come down when the cap was pulled
off, and it took the full stretch of his arm to do so, before it fell
heavily from his fingers.

When I presented myself to my mother with the bunch of flowers still in