ner the upturned face
of a little boy greeted her eyes. He was dilatorily throwing up a piece
of wood into the fire every now and then, a business which seemed to
have engaged him a considerable part of the evening, for his face was
somewhat weary.

"I am glad you have come, Miss Eustacia," he said, with a sigh of
relief. "I don't like biding by myself."

"Nonsense. I have only been a little way for a walk. I have been gone
only twenty minutes."

"It seemed long," murmured the sad boy. "And you have been so many
times."

"Why, I thought you would be pleased to have a bonfire. Are you not much
obliged to me for making you one?"

"Yes; but there's nobody here to play wi' me."

"I suppose nobody has come while I've been away?"

"Nobody except your grandfather--he looked out of doors once for 'ee.
I told him you were walking round upon the hill to look at the other
bonfires."

"A good boy."

"I think I hear him coming again, miss."

An old man came into the remoter light of the fire from the direction
of the homestead. He was the same who had overtaken the reddleman on the
road that afternoon. He looked wistfully to the top of the bank at
the woman who stood there, and his teeth, which were quite unimpaired,
showed like parian from his parted lips.

"When are you coming indoors, Eustacia?" he asked. "'Tis almost bedtime.
I've been home these two hours, and am tired out. Surely 'tis somewhat
childish of you to stay out playing at bonfires so long, and wasting
such fuel. My precious thorn roots, the rarest of all firing, that I
laid by on purpose for Christmas--you have burnt 'em nearly all!"

"I promised Johnny a bonfire, and it pleases him not to let it go out
just yet," said Eustacia, in a way which told at once that she was
absolute queen here. "Grandfather, you go in to bed. I shall follow you
soon. You like the fire, don't you, Johnny?"

The boy looked up doubtfully at her and murmured, "I don't think I want
it any longer."

Her grandfather had turned back again, and did not hear the boy's reply.
As soon as the white-haired man had vanished she said in a tone of pique
to the child, "Ungrateful little boy, how can you contradict me? Never
shall you have a bonfire again unless you keep it up now. Come, tell me
you like to do things for me, and don't deny it."

The repressed child said, "Yes, I do, miss," and continued to stir the
fire perfunctorily.

"Stay a little longer and I will give you a crooke