fulness.
Her husband's nebulous rationalism clouded Phoebe's religious views not
at all. She daily prayed to Christ for her child's welfare, and went to
church whenever she could, at the express command of her father. A flash
of folly from Will had combined with hard weather to keep the miller
from any visit to Newtake. Mr. Lyddon, on the beginning of the great
frost, had sent two pairs of thick blankets from the Monks Barton stores
to Phoebe, and Will, opening the parcel during his wife's absence,
resented the gift exceedingly, and returned it by the bearer with a curt
message of thanks and the information that he did not need them. Much
hurt, the donor turned his face from Newtake for six weeks after this
incident, and Phoebe, who knew nothing of the matter, marvelled at her
father's lengthy and unusual silence.

As for Will, during these black days, the steadfast good temper of his
wife almost irritated him; but he saw the prime source of her courage,
and himself loved their small son dearly. Once a stray journal fell into
his hands, and upon an article dealing with emigration he built secret
castles in the air, and grew more happy for the space of a week. His
mother ailed a little through the winter, and he often visited her. But
in her presence he resolutely put off gloom, spoke with sanguine tongue
of the prosperity he foresaw during the coming spring, and always
foretold the frost must break within four-and-twenty-hours. Damaris
Blanchard was therefore deceived in some measure, and when Will spent
five shillings upon a photograph of his son, she felt that the Newtake
prospects must at least be more favourable than she feared, and let the
circumstance of the picture be generally known.

Not until the middle of March came a thaw, and then unchained waters and
melted snows roared and tumbled from the hills through every coomb and
valley. Each gorge, each declivity contributed an unwonted torrent; the
quaking bogs shivered as though beneath them monsters turned in sleep or
writhed in agony; the hoarse cry of Teign betokened new tribulations to
the ears of those who understood; and over the Moor there rolled and
crowded down a sodden mantle of mist, within whose chilly heart every
elevation of note vanished for days together. Wrapped in impenetrable
folds were the high lands, and the gigantic vapour stretched a million
dripping tentacles over forests and wastes into the valleys beneath. Now
it crept even to the heart