She was without her widow’s cap, which revealed the fact that her hair, though the two narrow, smooth bands of it which appeared every day beyond her cap were unmistakably grey, was different in some essential respects from (say) Mrs. Jones’s, our grey-haired washer-woman.  The more you saw of Mrs. Jones’s head, the less hair you perceived her to have, and the whiter that little appeared.  Indeed, the knob into which it was twisted at the back was much of the colour as well as of the size of a tangled reel of dirty white cotton.  But Mrs. Wood’s hair was far more abundant than our mother’s, and it was darker underneath than on the top—­a fact which was more obvious when the knot into which it was gathered in her neck was no longer hidden.  Deep brown streaks were mingled with the grey in the twists of this, and I could see them quite well, for the outline of her head was dark against the white-washed mullion of the window, and framed by ivy-leaves.  As she leaned out to lower the basket we could see her better and better, and, as it touched the ground, the jerk pulled her forward, and the knot of her hair uncoiled and rolled heavily over the window-sill.

By this time the rays of the sun were level with the windows, and shone full upon Mrs. Wood’s face.  I was very much absorbed in looking at her, but I could not forget our peculiar position, and I had an important question to put, which I did without more ado.

“Please, madam, shall you tell Father?”

“We only want to know,” added Jem.

She hesitated a minute, and then smiled.  “No; I don’t think you’ll do it again;” after which she disappeared.

“She’s certainly no sneak,” said I, with an effort to be magnanimous, for I would much rather she had sprung the rattle or fired the blunderbuss.

“And I say,” said Jem, “isn’t she pretty without her cap?”

We looked ruefully at the walnuts.  We had lost all appetite for them, and they seemed disgustingly damp, with their green coats reeking with black bruises.  But we could not have left the basket behind, so we put our sticks through the handles, and carried it like the Sunday picture of the spies carrying the grapes of Eshcol.

And Jem and I have often since agreed that we never in all our lives felt so mean as on that occasion, and we sincerely hope that we never may.

Indeed, it is only in some books and some sermons that people are divided into “the wicked” and “the good,” and that “the wicked” have no consciences at all.  Jem and I had wilfully gone thieving, but we were far from being utterly hardened, and the school-mistress’s generosity weighed heavily upon ours.  Repentance and the desire to make atonement seem to go pretty naturally together, and in my case they led to the following dialogue with Jem, on the subject of two exquisite little bantam hens and a cock, which were our joint property, and which were known in the farmyard as “the Major and his wives.”