Her father, perhaps, was speaking to him now.
Phebe had passed into a reverie, as full of pleasure as of pain, and she fancied she heard her father's voice--that voice which she had never heard.

She started, and awoke herself.

It was growing dusk, and she was faint with hunger and fatigue.

The wintry sun had sunk some time since behind the brow of the hill, leaving only a few faint lines of clouds running across a clear amber light.

She stepped down from the horse-block reluctantly, and with slow steps loitered up the garden-path to the deserted cottage.
It might have been better, she thought, if she had let Mrs.Nixey come home with her; but, oh, how tired she was of her aimless chatter, which seemed to din the ear and drive away all quiet thought from the heart.
She had been very weary of all the fuss that had made a Babel of the little homestead since her father's death.