rried
briony garlands clung to the bared hedges, and here and there flared
scarlet, still holding their red defiantly until hard frosts should come
to shrivel and blacken them. The rare hours of sunshine were amber hours
instead of golden.

As she passed through the park gate Betty was thinking of the first
morning on which she had walked down the village street between the
irregular rows of red-tiled cottages with the ragged little enclosing
gardens. Then the air and sunshine had been of the just awakening
spring, now the sky was brightly cold, and through the small-paned
windows she caught glimpses of fireglow. A bent old man walking very
slowly, leaning upon two sticks, had a red-brown woollen muffler wrapped
round his neck. Seeing her, he stopped and shuffled the two sticks
into one hand that he might leave the other free to touch his wrinkled
forehead stiffly, his face stretching into a slow smile as she stopped
to speak to him.

"Good-morning, Marlow," he said. "How is the rheumatism to-day?"

He was a deaf old man, whose conversation was carried on principally by
guesswork, and it was easy for him to gather that when her ladyship's
handsome young sister had given him greeting she had not forgotten to
inquire respecting the "rheumatics," which formed the greater part of
existence.

"Mornin', miss--mornin'," he answered in the high, cracked voice
of rural ancientry. "Winter be nigh, an' they damp days be full of
rheumatiz. 'T'int easy to get about on my old legs, but I be main
thankful for they warm things you sent, miss. This 'ere," fumbling at
his red-brown muffler proudly, "'tis a comfort on windy days, so
'tis, and warmth be a good thing to a man when he be goin' down hill in
years."

"All of you who are not able to earn your own fires shall be warm this
winter," her ladyship's handsome sister said, speaking closer to his
ear. "You shall all be warm. Don't be afraid of the cold days coming."

He shuffled his sticks and touched his forehead again, looking up at her
admiringly and chuckling.

"'T'will be a new tale for Stornham village," he cackled. "'T'will be
a new tale. Thank ye, miss. Thank ye."

As she nodded smilingly and passed on, she heard him cackling still
under his breath as he hobbled on his slow way, comforted and elate. How
almost shamefully easy it was; a few loads of coal and faggots here and
there, a few blankets and warm garments whose cost counted for so little
when one's hands were