an
to be looked up to as commander, and I often feel it."

"I am sorry to stop the talk," said Mrs. Yeobright. "But I must be
leaving you now. I was passing down the Anglebury Road, towards my
niece's new home, who is returning tonight with her husband; and
seeing the bonfire and hearing Olly's voice among the rest I came up
here to learn what was going on. I should like her to walk with me, as
her way is mine."

"Ay, sure, ma'am, I'm just thinking of moving," said Olly.

"Why, you'll be safe to meet the reddleman that I told ye of," said
Fairway. "He's only gone back to get his van. We heard that your
niece and her husband were coming straight home as soon as they were
married, and we are going down there shortly, to give 'em a song o'
welcome."

"Thank you indeed," said Mrs. Yeobright.

"But we shall take a shorter cut through the furze than you can go
with long clothes; so we won't trouble you to wait."

"Very well--are you ready, Olly?"

"Yes, ma'am. And there's a light shining from your niece's window,
see. It will help to keep us in the path."

She indicated the faint light at the bottom of the valley which
Fairway had pointed out; and the two women descended the tumulus.

IV

The Halt on the Turnpike Road

Down, downward they went, and yet further down--their descent at each
step seeming to outmeasure their advance. Their skirts were scratched
noisily by the furze, their shoulders brushed by the ferns, which,
though dead and dry, stood erect as when alive, no sufficient winter
weather having as yet arrived to beat them down. Their Tartarean
situation might by some have been called an imprudent one for two
unattended women. But these shaggy recesses were at all seasons a
familiar surrounding to Olly and Mrs. Yeobright; and the addition of
darkness lends no frightfulness to the face of a friend.

"And so Tamsin has married him at last," said Olly, when the incline
had become so much less steep that their footsteps no longer required
undivided attention.

Mrs. Yeobright answered slowly, "Yes: at last."

"How you will miss her--living with 'ee as a daughter, as she always
have."

"I do miss her."

Olly, though without the tact to perceive when remarks were untimely,
was saved by her very simplicity from rendering them offensive.
Questions that would have been resented in others she could ask with
impunity. This accounted for Mrs. Yeobright's acquiescence in the
revival of an evidently s