’Well; hoods is a bit old-fashioned, to my mind.  If ’t were mine, I’d have a cape cut i’ three points, one to tie on each shoulder, and one to dip down handsome behind.  But let yo’ an’ me go to Monkshaven church o’ Sunday, and see Measter Fishburn’s daughters, as has their things made i’ York, and notice a bit how they’re made.  We needn’t do it i’ church, but just scan ’em o’er i’ t’ churchyard, and there’ll be no harm done.  Besides, there’s to be this grand burryin’ o’ t’ man t’ press-gang shot, and ’t will be like killing two birds at once.’

‘I should like to go,’ said Sylvia.  ’I feel so sorry like for the poor sailors shot down and kidnapped just as they was coming home, as we see’d ’em o’ Thursday last.  I’ll ask mother if she’ll let me go.’

’Ay, do.  I know my mother ’ll let me, if she doesn’t go hersen; for it ’ll be a sight to see and to speak on for many a long year, after what I’ve heerd.  And Miss Fishburns is sure to be theere, so I’d just get Donkin to cut out cloak itsel’, and keep back yer mind fra’ fixing o’ either cape or hood till Sunday’s turn’d.’

‘Will yo’ set me part o’ t’ way home?’ said Sylvia, seeing the dying daylight become more and more crimson through the blackening trees.

’No; I can’t.  A should like it well enough, but somehow, there’s a deal o’ work to be done yet, for t’ hours slip through one’s fingers so as there’s no knowing.  Mind yo’, then, o’ Sunday.  A’ll be at t’ stile one o’clock punctual; and we’ll go slowly into t’ town, and look about us as we go, and see folk’s dresses; and go to t’ church, and say wer prayers, and come out and have a look at t’ funeral.’

And with this programme of proceedings settled for the following Sunday, the girls whom neighbourhood and parity of age had forced into some measure of friendship parted for the time.

Sylvia hastened home, feeling as if she had been absent long; her mother stood on the little knoll at the side of the house watching for her, with her hand shading her eyes from the low rays of the setting sun:  but as soon as she saw her daughter in the distance, she returned to her work, whatever that might be.  She was not a woman of many words, or of much demonstration; few observers would have guessed how much she loved her child; but Sylvia, without any reasoning or observation, instinctively knew that her mother’s heart was bound up in her.

Her father and Donkin were going on much as when she had left them; talking and disputing, the one compelled to be idle, the other stitching away as fast as he talked.  They seemed as if they had never missed Sylvia; no more did her mother for that matter, for she was busy and absorbed in her afternoon dairy-work to all appearance.  But Sylvia had noted the watching not three minutes before, and many a time in her after life, when no one cared much for her out-goings and in-comings, the straight, upright figure of her mother, fronting the setting sun, but searching through its blinding rays for a sight of her child, rose up like a sudden-seen picture, the remembrance of which smote Sylvia to the heart with a sense of a lost blessing, not duly valued while possessed.