easure or
his pride; perhaps because of illness or inability to conceive the actual
situation at a distance. He mentioned the presence of the countess, and
Mr. Wythan mentioned it, neither of them thinking a rational man would so
play the lunatic as to let men starve, and wreck precious mines, for the
sake of avoiding her.

Sullen days went by. On these days of the slate-cloud or the
leaden-winged, Carinthia walked over the hills to her staring or
down-eyed silent people, admitted without a welcome at some doors,
rejected at some. Her baskets from the castle were for the most part
received as graciously. She continued to direct them for delivery where
they were needed, and understood why a charity that supplied the place of
justice was not thanked. She and her people here were one regarding the
master, as she had said. They could not hurt her sensitiveness, she felt
too warmly with them. And here it was not the squalid, flat, bricked
east-corner of London at the close of her daily pilgrimage. Up from the
solitary street of the slate-roofs, she mounted a big hill and had the
life of high breathing. A perpetual escape out of the smoky, grimy city
mazes was trumpeted to her in the winds up there: a recollected contrast
lightened the skyless broad spaces overhead almost to sunniness. Having
air of the hills and activity for her limbs, she made sunshine for
herself. Regrets were at no time her nestlings.

Look backward only to correct an error of conduct for the next attempt,
says one of her father's Maxims; as sharply bracing for women as for men.
She did not look back to moan. Now that her hunger for the safety of her
infant was momentarily quieted, she could see Kit Ines hanging about the
lower ground, near the alehouse, and smile at Madge's comparison of him
to a drummed-out soldier, who would like to be taken for a holiday
pensioner.

He saluted; under the suspicion of his patron's lady his legs were
hampered, he dared not approach her; though his innocence of a deed not
proposed to him yet--and all to stock that girl Madge's shop, if done!
knocked at his ribs with fury to vindicate himself before the lady and
her maid. A gentleman met them and conducted them across the hills.

And two Taffy gentlemen would hardly be sufficient for the purpose,
supposing an ill-used Englishman inclined to block their way!--What, and
play footpad, Kit Ines? No, it's just a game in the head. But a true man
hates to feel himself suspec