James T. Boulton

She turned away. Her son was very much like herself, yet
something in him always pained her, and roused her opposition.
He had his father's brutality, without his father's frank boisterous-
ness. She glanced again at the clock, and took the potatoes to
strain them in the yard. The garden and the fields beyond the
brook were closed in uncertain darkness. When she rose with
the saucepan, leaving the grate steaming into the night behind
her, she saw the yellow lamps were lit along the highway that
went up the hill away beyond the space of the railway-lines
and the field. Then again, she watched the men trooping home,
fewer now, and fewer.

Indoors the highest flush of the fire had passed and the
night pressed round the ruddy glowing room. The woman
put her saucepan on the hob, and set a batter pudding near the
mouth of the oven. Then she stood unmoving. Irritation
and suspense gathered like the thickening darkness: then,
gratefully, came quick young steps to the door. A child hung
on the latch a moment, and a little girl entered.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, sniffing, "Stew! Can I have
some, mother?"

She began pulling off her clothes, dragging a mass of curls
just ripening from gold to brown over her eyes with her hat.

"Well," said her mother. "Shut the door! You're late,
aren't you?"

"Why, what time is it? We had a lovely game of king o'
the mountain down Nethergreen. Oh, mother, is tea ready?
I thought of it against the crossing, an' I run*, for it did seem
beautiful -- tea."

She hung her grey scarf and her clothes on the door. Her
mother chid her for coming late from school, and said she would
have to keep her at home the dark winter days.

18