er; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had
been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found
out what it was to be sorry for some one. She was getting on.

But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something
else. She did not know what it was, because at first she could scarcely
distinguish it from the wind itself. It was a curious sound--it seemed
almost as if a child were crying somewhere. Sometimes the wind sounded
rather like a child crying, but presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure
that this sound was inside the house, not outside it. It was far away,
but it was inside. She turned round and looked at Martha.

"Do you hear any one crying?" she said.

Martha suddenly looked confused.

"No," she answered. "It's th' wind. Sometimes it sounds like as if some
one was lost on th' moor an' wailin'. It's got all sorts o' sounds."

"But listen," said Mary. "It's in the house--down one of those long
corridors."

And at that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere
down-stairs; for a great rushing draft blew along the passage and the
door of the room they sat in was blown open with a crash, and as they
both jumped to their feet the light was blown out and the crying sound
was swept down the far corridor so that it was to be heard more plainly
than ever.

"There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is some one crying--and it isn't a
grown-up person."

Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but before she did it
they both heard the sound of a door in some far passage shutting with a
bang, and then everything was quiet, for even the wind ceased
"wutherin'" for a few moments.

"It was th' wind," said Martha stubbornly. "An' if it wasn't, it was
little Betty Butterworth, th' scullery-maid. She's had th' toothache all
day."

But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary
stare very hard at her. She did not believe she was speaking the truth.

CHAPTER VI

"THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING--THERE WAS!"

The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary
looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and
cloud. There could be no going out to-day.

"What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked
Martha.

"Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered. "Eh!
there does seem a lot of us then. Mother's a good-tempered woman but she
gets fair moit