of her triumph over her disability was,
that no one dreamed of calling her "Poor Mary." Like her friend, Anne
Hilton, she was a member of the little wayside chapel, which, with all
that it meant, made a centre of warmth and fellowship for both lonely
women.

CHAPTER VI

So placid and unimpressive was the country which lay about Anne Hilton's
cottage, that in the lanes which branched from it one seldom thought of
any other season than that of spring. Even in winter, when a few
shrivelled berries clattered in the leafless hedges, and the old beech
leaves dangled until the new ones swelled in the stem, one thought of
the beauty of spring, when the hedges would be full of hawthorn, and the
banks of cowslips, when cherry-blossom would fill the orchards, and the
young lambs and calves lie about in the low, green meadows, and the sky
would be great and vigorous above the quiescent earth. On the same day,
a week later, Anne was in the dairy in the evening, packing her butter
for the following day's market. The day just withdrawing had been golden
from beginning to end. The sun had risen without mist and set in a sky
without a cloud, seeming, as it sank, to draw with it all the colour
from the heavens, as if it had cast a golden net in the morning and now
drew it home again behind the hill.

As the warm light ebbed, a coolness, as of an actual atmosphere
distilled into the cottage, became apparent in the kitchen. Now that the
sunlight had gone, one could see the objects in the room with a new
distinctness. It was serious, quiet, and orderly in this grave light,
like the room of some saint shown in piety to pilgrims.

A tall, half-grown youth came to the kitchen door, and, knocking twice,
entered and sat down lumpily on the wooden armchair, slipping a basket
from his arm on to the table as he did so. He looked round him, pleased
unconsciously by the grave light and the orderly room.

"You've a quiet life of it here," he said, rising to shake hands with
Anne, who came into the room at the same moment, bending a little as she
walked with the slightly anxious expression of one preoccupied with
pain.

"Yes," she replied, "it's very pleasant in the kitchen when the sun goes
off. Nearly every evening at this time something about the room brings
to my mind the hymn--

"When quiet in my house I sit,
Thy book be my companion still."

The youth looked uncomfortable, thinking that he had brought upon
himself a sermon unaw