was actually some way out up the road. Still, through the streaming rain she pursued her, and brought her back just as the grey dawn showed her a cart and man coming towards her along the road. She then heaped up the wreck of the field gate into a substantial barrier, tied up the other gate with strong cord, and returned to lay her drenched hair on the pillow with a good conscience.
To return to her way of life at Orchard Poyle. Here her disinclination to seek society, to leave her home, to depart in any way from the quiet, unvarying life she preferred, continued and increased. But it was not a selfish, inactive life; her last years were spent in attention to home duties and interests, enlivened by her few warm friendships and general kindnesses, and marked above all by devoted affection and continual care given to the companion of her home. The years since they were left wholly alone had been years of the closest, most unbroken union; all the closer, no doubt, that two markedly distinct personalities viewed and handled the stuff of which that life in common was made up. They were not unfrequently apart, but the intercourse
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