n
the road to Kelstein.

"To father?" Hetty came out of her day-dreams with a start.

"Yes: you've been having a tiff this morning, anyone can see.
Young man is poison to him, hey? Why don't you take a leaf out of my
book? 'Paternal authority'--and a successor of the apostles into the
bargain--that's his ground. Well, I don't allow him to take it.
'Beggars can't be choosers' is mine, and I pin him to it. Oh, yes,
_I'm_ poison to him, but it does him good. 'That cock won't crow,'
I say. He's game enough on his own dunghill, but a high-blooded lass
like you ought to be his master by this time. Hint that you'll cut
the painter, kick over the traces--you needn't _do_ it, y'know.
Threaten you'll run and join the stage--nothing unlikely in that--
and, by George, it'd bring him up with a clove hitch! Where's your
invention?"

Hetty gazed at the horse's ears and considered. "It's easy for you,
Dick, who have nothing in common with him, not even affection."

"Oh, I like the old fellow well enough, for all his airs with me,"
said Mr. Dick Ellison graciously.

"If they annoyed you more, you might understand him better--and me,"
replied Hetty.

Silence fell between them again and the gig bowled on.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

The frozen canal ran straight towards the sunset, into a flooded
country where only a line of pollard willows, with here and there an
alder, marked the course of its left bank. But where Hetty waited
the banks were higher, and the red ball on the horizon sent a level
shaft down the lane between them.

She was alone. Indeed, the only living creature within sight was a
red-breast, hunched into a ball and watching her from a wintry willow
bough; the only moving object a windmill half a mile away across the
level, turning its sails against the steel-gray sky--so listlessly,
they seemed to be numbed.

She had strapped on a pair of skates--clumsy homemade things, and a
birthday present from Johnny Whitelamb, who had fashioned them with
pains, the Epworth blacksmith helping. Hetty skated excellently
well--in days, be it understood, before the cutting of figures had
been advanced to an art with rules and text-books. But as the poise
and balanced impetus came natural to her, so in idle moments and
casually she had struck out figures of her own, and she practised
them now with the red-breast for spectator. She was happy--her
bosom's lord sitting lightly on his throne--and all bec