Crossing the meadow you'll be ankle-deep in dew.

You must promise never to go home across the meadow when you dine with us." He spoke, chiding her as if she had been a mutinous child, and with so much anxiety that she laughed.
"You see, you have become rather precious to me," he added.
Though the month was July she that night was all April, half tears, half laughter.

The smile passed from her lips and she raised her hands to her face with the swiftness of one who has been struck.
"What's the matter ?" he asked, and she drew her hand away.
"Don't you understand ?" she asked, and answered the question herself.
"No, why should you ?" She turned to him suddenly, her bosom heaving, her hands clenched.

"Do you know what place I fill here, in my own county?
Years ago, when I was a child, there was supposed to be a pig-faced woman in Great Beeding.

She lived in a small yellow cottage in the Square.