"Poor Lois!" she thought, with an eager pity, forgetting her own intolerable future for the moment, as she gathered up some breakfast and went with it down the lane.

Morning had come; great heavy bars of light fell from behind the hills athwart the banks of gray and black fog; there was shifting, uneasy, obstinate tumult among the shadows; they did not mean to yield to the coming dawn.

The hills, the massed woods, the mist opposed their immovable front, scornfully.

Margret did not notice the silent contest until she reached the lane.

The girl Lois, sitting in her cart, was looking, attentive, at the slow surge of the shadows, and the slower lifting of the slanted rays.
"T' mornin' comes grand here, Miss Marg'et!" she said, lowering her voice.
Margret said nothing in reply; the morning, she thought, was gray and cold, like her own life.