fields, Sylvia went by
the very shortest path she knew.

She had only once been at Haytersbank since her wedding-day. On that
occasion the place had seemed strangely and dissonantly changed by
the numerous children who were diverting themselves before the open
door, and whose playthings and clothes strewed the house-place, and
made it one busy scene of confusion and untidiness, more like the
Corneys' kitchen in former times, than her mother's orderly and
quiet abode. Those little children were fatherless now; and the
house was shut up, awaiting the entry of some new tenant. There were
no shutters to shut; the long low window was blinking in the rays of
the morning sun; the house and cow-house doors were closed, and no
poultry wandered about the field in search of stray grains of corn,
or early worms. It was a strange and unfamiliar silence, and struck
solemnly on Sylvia's mind. Only a thrush in the old orchard down in
the hollow, out of sight, whistled and gurgled with continual shrill
melody.

Sylvia went slowly past the house and down the path leading to the
wild, deserted bit of garden. She saw that the last tenants had had
a pump sunk for them, and resented the innovation, as though the
well she was passing could feel the insult. Over it grew two
hawthorn trees; on the bent trunk of one of them she used to sit,
long ago: the charm of the position being enhanced by the possible
danger of falling into the well and being drowned. The rusty unused
chain was wound round the windlass; the bucket was falling to pieces
from dryness. A lean cat came from some outhouse, and mewed
pitifully with hunger; accompanying Sylvia to the garden, as if glad
of some human companionship, yet refusing to allow itself to be
touched. Primroses grew in the sheltered places, just as they
formerly did; and made the uncultivated ground seem less deserted
than the garden, where the last year's weeds were rotting away, and
cumbering the ground.

Sylvia forced her way through the berry bushes to the herb-plot, and
plucked the tender leaves she had come to seek; sighing a little all
the time. Then she retraced her steps; paused softly before the
house-door, and entered the porch and kissed the senseless wood.

She tried to tempt the poor gaunt cat into her arms, meaning to
carry it home and befriend it; but it was scared by her endeavour
and ran back to its home in the outhouse, making a green path across
the white dew of the meadow. Then Sy