Things had not been neatly cut down and burned and swept away.

The grandsons had made the garden autumn-tidy every year before this one.
The old fairy woman sat on a clean print-covered arm chair by a very small fire.

She had a black print dress on and a black shawl and a black ribbon round her cap.

Her Bible lay on a little table near her but it was closed.
"Don't get up, please, Mrs.Bennett," Robin said when she lifted the latch and entered.
The old fairy woman looked at her in a dazed way.
"I'm so eye-dimmed with crying that I can scarcely see," she said.
Robin came to her and knelt down on the hearth.
"I'm your lodger," she faltered, "who--who used to love the fairy wood so." She had not known what she would say when she spoke first but she had certainly not thought of saying anything like this.

And she certainly had not known that she would suddenly find herself overwhelmed by a rising tidal wave of unbearable woe and drop her face on to the old woman's lap with wild sobbing.