depression of Red Hall filled her with transient exultation and joyousness.
The row was long.
"O mother!" she said, as she passed under the Ray hill, "I must indeed run up and look at the place. I cannot go by."
"Do as you will," said Mrs. Sharland. " I cannot control you. I don't pretend to. My wishes and my feelings are nothing to you."
Mehalah did not notice this peevish remark, she was accustomed to her mother's fretfulness. She threw the little anchor on the gravel at the "hard," and jumped on shore. She ascended the hill and stood by the scorched black patch which marked her old home. The house had burned to the last stick, leaving two brick chimneys standing gauntly alone. There was the old hearth at which she had so often crouched, bare, cold, and open. A few bricks had been blown from the top of the chimney, but otherwise it was intact.
As she stood looking sadly on the relics, Abraham Dowsing came up.
"What are you doing here?"
"I have come away from Red Hall, Abraham," she said gaily, "I do not think I have been so happy for many a day."
"When are you going back?"
"Never."
"Who then is to prepare me my wittles ? " he asked sullenly. "I ain't going to be put off with anything."
"I do not know, Abraham."
"But I must know. Now go back again, and don't do what's wrong and foolish. You ought to be there, and mistress there too. Then all will run smooth, and I'll get my wittles as I like them."
"You need not speak of that, Abraham, I shall never return to Red Hall. I have quitted it and I hope have seen the last of the hateful house and its still more hateful master."
"I wonder," mused the shepherd, "whether I could arrange with Rebow to get my wittles from the Rose"
"That is where I am going to."
