ne, only nodded, his eyes never wandered from
the road along which their father was to come. It was very still and
quiet there, almost oppressively so. No one passed, and no sound, except
the voices of the birds and the distant mooing of a cow, broke the
silence.

"P'raps after all we'd better go on," said Bella at last, after restlessly
fidgeting about, and staring along the dirty road until her eyes ached.

"It doesn't seem to be much use waiting," said Tom quietly, and they
started on their way again, but far less cheerfully now. Indeed, for such
a trifling and easily explained incident, their spirits were strangely
cast down. A dozen simple things might have happened to prevent their
father's coming; he might have been detained at his work, or have met some
one, and be staying talking to them; or he might have been busy and have
forgotten the time.

Perhaps it was because they were over-tired and hungry, and in the state
to look on the gloomy side of things, that they could not take a cheerful
view of the matter, or shake off the feeling of depression which filled
them.

Whether this was so or not, they felt anxious and troubled, and all the
sunshine and pleasure seemed to have gone out of their day. It was almost
as though a foreboding of the truth had come to them--that when they left
the old milestone they were leaving their light-heartedness and childhood
behind them, never quite to find them again. Never, at any rate, the
same. When they left it they set their faces towards a long, dark road,
with many a weary hill and many a desolate space to cross, and with a
heavier burden to bear than any they had yet borne.

Had they known, their hearts might have failed them altogether, perhaps,
though the way was not to be all as dark and stony for their tired feet,
as at first it had seemed to promise. There would be sunshine on the road
for them too, and pleasant resting-places.

To them then, as they trudged along in silence, the road they had to tread
seemed hard and gloomy enough, even though it was the road towards home.
Every yard seemed as six, and never a glimpse did they catch of their
father, or Margery, or Charlie. Bella walked that mile often and often in
the years that followed, but never again without remembering that
afternoon.

At last, as they drew near the top of 'their own lane,' as they called it,
they saw a woman standing; she had no hat on her head, and appeared to be
waiting and l