What didst thou, left thus alone upon the lone heath?
I trow it was an unmanly and unmannerly act to leave thee thus.

What befell thee then ?" Cuthbert looked round cautiously; but there was no one listening to the chatter of this pair of idlers in the window.

Mistress Susan's voice was heard below scolding the serving wench, and Martin Holt was poring over some big ledger whilst Jemima called over the figures of a heap of bills.

Keziah was at her spinning wheel, which hummed merrily in the red firelight; and Cherry was seizing advantage of her aunt's absence to chatter instead of work.
Cherry had from the first been Cuthbert's confidante and friend.

It was taken for granted by this time that this should be so.