openly regarded
me with any unusual meaning, but that I knew she was watching slyly
whenever I took a spoon up; and every hour or so she managed to place a
pan of water by me, quite as if by accident, and sometimes even to spill
a little upon my shoe or coat-sleeve. But Betty Muxworthy was worst;
for, having no fear about my health, she made a villainous joke of it,
and used to rush into the kitchen, barking like a dog, and panting,
exclaiming that I had bitten her, and justice she would have on me, if
it cost her a twelvemonth's wages. And she always took care to do this
thing just when I had crossed my legs in the corner after supper, and
leaned my head against the oven, to begin to think of Lorna.

However, in all things there is comfort, if we do not look too hard
for it; and now I had much satisfaction, in my uncouth state, from
labouring, by the hour together, at the hedging and the ditching,
meeting the bitter wind face to face, feeling my strength increase, and
hoping that some one would be proud of it. In the rustling rush of
every gust, in the graceful bend of every tree, even in the 'lords and
ladies,' clumped in the scoops of the hedgerow, and most of all in the
soft primrose, wrung by the wind, but stealing back, and smiling when
the wrath was passed--in all of these, and many others there was aching
ecstasy, delicious pang of Lorna.

But however cold the weather was, and however hard the wind blew, one
thing (more than all the rest) worried and perplexed me. This was, that
I could not settle, turn and twist as I might, how soon I ought to go
again upon a visit to Glen Doone. For I liked not at all the falseness
of it (albeit against murderers), the creeping out of sight, and hiding,
and feeling as a spy might. And even more than this. I feared how Lorna
might regard it; whether I might seem to her a prone and blunt intruder,
a country youth not skilled in manners, as among the quality, even when
they rob us. For I was not sure myself, but that it might be very bad
manners to go again too early without an invitation; and my hands and
face were chapped so badly by the bitter wind, that Lorna might count
them unsightly things, and wish to see no more of them.

However, I could not bring myself to consult any one upon this point, at
least in our own neighbourhood, nor even to speak of it near home. But
the east wind holding through the month, my hands and face growing worse
and worse, and it having occurred