Winter ended soon, and spring came early that year.  In the cottage garden the wallflowers and daffodils had sprung up and burst into bloom before anyone had quite realised that their time had come.  In the field opposite the hedges were so lined with primroses that the scent greeted you across the road.

In those warm days, when school was over, and on half-holidays, Huldah took her work across to the field, and sat in the sunshine surrounded by the gold-starred hedges, where the ferns and violets and ladies’ smocks fought for room, and mingled in one sweet tangle of beauty.  She was very, very happy in those days, and busy from morning till night.  She had her house-work, her school-work, and also her basket-making, and she worked very hard indeed at the last, for by means of it she was able to buy many little comforts for “Aunt Martha,” as she had learnt to call Mrs. Perry, and was able to clothe herself, and put something by in the bank.  At least, she hoped to be able to go on doing that, if the orders came in as they had done.

“When I leave school I shall have ever so much more time, too,” she thought, joyfully,—­for Huldah did not love school, and longed for the time when she would be freed from it.

In the middle of the field rose a high hillock, over which the young lambs loved to run and play in the spring-time, and on the top of the hillock lay the trunk of a large tree, which had lain there ever since a storm had blown it down years ago.

Huldah, at any rate, was glad of the idleness which had never put the tree to any good use, for it formed her favourite seat now.  The view from it was lovely, she could look right down over the slope of the hill to the woods and stream at the foot, and then away up over the moorland beyond, and she could see the road, too, and keep watch over the cottage, and if Aunt Martha wanted her, she had only to step to the door and wave her hand.

Sometimes during that summer she got Mrs. Perry up to the fallen tree too, and more than once they had their tea there.  But Mrs. Perry was not very fond of sitting out of doors, and more often Huldah was alone, save for Dick, alone with her thoughts and hopes and dreams.

That summer was a long and hot one, with frequent heavy thunderstorms.  Mrs. Perry could not endure the storms, they made her feel ill, and frightened her, until all her nerves were set quivering.  Huldah herself felt no fear, but she did dread the storms for her aunt’s sake, and there seemed no end to them that summer.

“I do believe there’s another coming up,” she sighed, as, suddenly noticing that the light was going, she lifted her eyes from her work and looked about her.  “I’d better go in now, in case it does come on; but it is vexing.  I did so want to finish this.”

It was the last day of August, and the close of the holidays, and Huldah had made up her mind to get the last of an order finished, and ready to send away before she went back to school.  She glanced down hesitatingly at her unfinished work, and then at the gathering blackness of the sky around her, a blackness which had a red-brown angry glow underneath,—­a glow which left no time for hesitation.