His mood had changed; he was sullen.

His sister always made him feel like a disgraced dog.

He shuffled on his feet.
"She's a good girl," he muttered at last, and then with a confused look about him, as though he were searching for something, he stumbled out of the room.
Meanwhile Maggie went on her way.

She chose instinctively her path, through the kitchen garden at the back of the village, down the hill by the village street, over the little bridge that crossed the rocky stream of the Dreot, and up the steep hill that led on to the outskirts of Rothin Moor.

The day, although she had no eyes for it, was one of those sudden impulses of misty warmth that surprise the Glebeshire frosts.