wild thyme near her, and she recalled the musical, balanced, wavering drop of a skylark into her nest, near the heather-bed where she lay.  The sun was sinking low, the hot air had ceased to quiver near the hotter earth, when she bethought her once more of the note which she had impatiently thrown down before half mastering its contents.  “Oh, perhaps,” she thought, “I have been too hasty.  There may be some words of explanation from him on the other side of the page, to which, in my blind anguish, I never turned.  I will go and find it.”

She lifted herself heavily and stiffly from the crushed heather.  She stood dizzy and confused with her change of posture; and was so unable to move at first, that her walk was but slow and tottering; but, by-and-by, she was tasked and goaded by thoughts which forced her into rapid motion, as if, by it, she could escape from her agony.  She came down on the level ground, just as many gay or peaceful groups were sauntering leisurely home with hearts at ease; with low laughs and quiet smiles, and many an exclamation at the beauty of the summer evening.

Ever since her adventure with the little boy and his sister, Ruth had habitually avoided encountering these happy—­innocents, may I call them?—­these happy fellow-mortals!  And even now, the habit grounded on sorrowful humiliation had power over her; she paused, and then, on looking back, she saw more people who had come into the main road from a side-path.  She opened a gate into a pasture-field, and crept up to the hedge-bank until all should have passed by, and she could steal into the inn unseen.  She sat down on the sloping turf by the roots of an old hawthorn tree which grew in the hedge; she was still tearless, with hot burning eyes; she heard the merry walkers pass by; she heard the footsteps of the village children as they ran along to their evening play; she saw the small black cows come into the fields after being milked; and life seemed yet abroad.  When would the world be still and dark, and fit for such a deserted, desolate creature as she was?  Even in her hiding-place she was not long at peace.  The little children, with their curious eyes peering here and there, had peeped through the hedge, and through the gate, and now they gathered from all the four corners of the hamlet, and crowded round the gate; and one more adventurous than the rest had run into the field to cry, “Gi’ me a halfpenny,” which set the example to every little one, emulous of his boldness; and there, where she sat, low on the ground, and longing for the sure hiding-place earth gives to the weary, the children kept running in, and pushing one another forwards and laughing.  Poor things! their time had not come for understanding what sorrow is.  Ruth would have begged them to leave her alone, and not madden her utterly; but they knew no English save the one eternal “Gi’ me a halfpenny.”  She felt in her heart that there was no pity anywhere.  Suddenly, while