allen
to such an extent that he had to follow her implicitly, and even lean
his hand on her shoulder when they jumped a bank into a very narrow
lane. And he felt curiously shy of her when she began to shout through
her hands at a spot of light which swung upon the mist in a neighboring
field. He shouted, too, and the light stood still.

"That's Christopher, come in already, and gone to feed his chickens,"
she said.

She introduced him to Ralph, who could see only a tall figure in
gaiters, rising from a fluttering circle of soft feathery bodies, upon
whom the light fell in wavering discs, calling out now a bright spot of
yellow, now one of greenish-black and scarlet. Mary dipped her hand in
the bucket he carried, and was at once the center of a circle also; and
as she cast her grain she talked alternately to the birds and to her
brother, in the same clucking, half-inarticulate voice, as it sounded to
Ralph, standing on the outskirts of the fluttering feathers in his black
overcoat.

He had removed his overcoat by the time they sat round the dinner-table,
but nevertheless he looked very strange among the others. A country life
and breeding had preserved in them all a look which Mary hesitated to
call either innocent or youthful, as she compared them, now sitting
round in an oval, softly illuminated by candlelight; and yet it was
something of the kind, yes, even in the case of the Rector himself.
Though superficially marked with lines, his face was a clear pink, and
his blue eyes had the long-sighted, peaceful expression of eyes seeking
the turn of the road, or a distant light through rain, or the darkness
of winter. She looked at Ralph. He had never appeared to her more
concentrated and full of purpose; as if behind his forehead were massed
so much experience that he could choose for himself which part of it
he would display and which part he would keep to himself. Compared with
that dark and stern countenance, her brothers' faces, bending low over
their soup-plates, were mere circles of pink, unmolded flesh.

"You came by the 3.10, Mr. Denham?" said the Reverend Wyndham Datchet,
tucking his napkin into his collar, so that almost the whole of his body
was concealed by a large white diamond. "They treat us very well, on
the whole. Considering the increase of traffic, they treat us very well
indeed. I have the curiosity sometimes to count the trucks on the goods'
trains, and they're well over fifty--well over fifty, at