Often when the wind shrieked about the old house, and the sycamores groaned under the lash, Mistress Lynn would listen with eager ears for the sound of Barbara's footsteps on the threshold. She knew by instinct, and understood by experience, that her great-granddaughter was going through some travail of soul. But she said nothing, only watched and waited, noting with her keen old brain the change of Barbara from a dreamy girl to a woman, whose will was becoming fixed in an inflexible mould, and whose mind was changing to something more mature but less comprehensible. As the winter deepened, the change grew more marked. Often in the pauses of the storm Barbara would enter with a slight smile, and a look as though she had been talking with someone, and was still full of that which she had heard. "Where hast been?" the old woman would ask her. "At Ketel's Parlour." "Alone?" Barbara laughed, and there was a new inflection in her voice. "I'm never alone. I have the sheep and the heather and the birds. Besides, there's Thundergay. Thundergay is father and brother and sister and lover all in one. You know that, great-granny. You sent me to Thundergay when I was only a bairn, and you said he'd teach me the way we Lynns must walk in the world. Thundergay has opened his heart to me, and I'm never lonely with him." At other times, in the midst of the battering of the wind, the girl would come in, her eyes shining, and her hair in wild disorder. She would go about her work with an energy never seen before in her movements. The hinds and Jess looked afraid of her, and kept their eyes fixed on their work. Lucy was surprised, she wondered what had come over her sister. But the old woman said never a word to enlighten her. She was seeing, as it were, a picture of herself eighty years ago. Lucy did not often get speech with her sister at this time. Since the night at Ketel's Parlour, when she had gone back to the mill-house instead of fulfilling her plan of going to see Joel at the Shepherd's Rest, they had never opened their lips upon the subject. Lucy felt aggrieved, though why she hardly knew. She had expected to have Barbara's constant sympathy, after she had bent to her wishes; she had relied upon having a strong arm to uphold her in the path in which she had agreed to walk. Instead she was left to herself: she had to pick her own way without encouragement and without pity for her sufferings. She thought Barbara cold and without understanding. Lucy was miserable. She was miserable because she was half-hearted; she still hankered after forbidden things, instead of turning away from them, and determining to draw out of her duty sustenance to enable her to fulfil it.