"I wish we could get out of our bodies," said she, breaking the long silence. "I wish we could shake them off like an old shift, and leave them here on the grass, while our souls sailed in the air naked-free." "What a horrid idea!" said Lucy, shrugging her shoulders. "But our bodies are so earthy--always wanting meat and drink, and crying out for sleep. They throw a shadow on us, like a great rock blocking the light o' the sun." "I know nought about it," answered Lucy, carelessly. Barbara laughed at the puzzle of her own thoughts. "I know nought either," she said; "yet something in me would like to win out if it could." Lucy went up the sheep-path. On the brow of the knoll she paused, looking back. Barbara was kindling a fire outside the cave, and the smoke, as it coiled upwards, hung between them like a blue veil. Her sister seemed to be moving among mysterious things, and there was symbolical meaning in the blue veil. For two worlds lie side by side, the material and the spiritual, and from either the view into the other seems hazy and unreal. But the greatest intellects try to reconcile them. Towards such a reconciliation Barbara, in her untutored mind, was striving. The sun had gone down, and, though the sky was still flushed with red and yellow, a subdued light and solemn stillness filled the dale--a stillness made the more impressive by the distant splashing of waterfalls and the calling of birds by the tarn. Lucy felt sad. She had dropped over the knoll with a sigh. Barbara had listened to her story of the gold coin, and dismissed it without comment. She had not been impressed by the idea of their great-grandmother's hidden wealth. She had suggested no way of making life easier or pleasanter. Instead, her mind was possessed by vague ideas and strange questionings, which her sister could not understand, and which had no bearing upon their everyday life. Lucy went home in the waning light with reluctant feet. But she was mistaken about Barbara's interest. For her sister had long known of the secret hoard, and had once remonstrated with the old woman about saving it in this way. But it had been in vain, as everything was in vain which opposed the will of Mistress Annas Lynn. The failure of the attempt had only served to strengthen the patience of her generous nature--the patience which can school itself to wait for the fulfilment of its desires, and, if need be, to receive without a murmur their denial. No shadow of a quarrel ever dimmed Barbara's out-goings or comings in; her intercourse with her ancient kinswoman was serene and reverent, and she would not hazard it in an attempt that could only result in an upheaval of the bitterest passion. Barbara then put the matter from her. In this she was different to Lucy, who could not cease to think and wonder and debate even after she had made up her mind. CHAPTER III PETER FLEMING