Jim Spedding was a little crooked greengrocer in Clough End, of whom she had a horror.

The biting hostile wind, which obliged her to hold her hat on against it with both hands, the black moor at their feet, the grey sweep of sky, the pale cloudy moon, the darkness which was fast enveloping them--blotting out the distant waves of hill, and fusing the great blocks of grit above them into one threatening mass--all these became suddenly hateful to her.

She went back into their den, wrapped herself up in one of the tattered rugs, and crept sulkily into a corner.

The lantern gleamed on the child's huddled form, the frowning brow, the great vixenish eyes.

She had half a mind to run home, in spite of Aunt Hannah.