"First of all her beloved bees have been in a most unsettled frame of mind, or so she tells me--I can't say I have seen any sign of it myself--and she assures me that something is going to happen. At first she felt certain that it was the arrival of a visitor for which they strove to prepare her. I am quite sure that it must have been your coming that is the cause of it. No one ever invaded my solitude before, and the excitement was too much for her. But as day after day passed and no stranger arrived, she changed her mind and is now equally certain that the restlessness of her household gods portends some fearful disaster. The awkward part of it is, that even she cannot make out what form it will take; she merely tells me gloomily that something is going to happen. She has tied a bunch of herbs over the door to keep illness away, and she has presented me with a little stone which she beseeches me to carry about with me to avert accident, but even these precautions haven't comforted her much. Whenever I return home I see her waiting anxiously at the gate with a face long enough to propitiate all the gods of misfortune, and when she sees me she finds it hard to believe that I am not dragging myself home to die of some hidden wound. "But never mind! I have known the good woman suffer from these attacks of depression before. It will pass and she will be restored to her accustomed cheerfulness. I have already told her that her symptoms point to indigestion, to which she replied darkly that by some oversight the last pig was killed at the waning of the moon, and that possibly the pork was 'a bit unheartsome' in consequence. Come and see her some day if you can. I dare say the sight of you will appease the bees and restore her to sanity." "I will if I possibly can," returned Philippa doubtfully. "But you know, I do not like to go very far in case Francis might ask for me. Could you not come and see me?" Isabella hesitated. "I do not think I will come to Bessacre unless you really want me--for anything particular, I mean. If I can be of any use to you, send for me, and I will come at once; but otherwise I think it will be better not." They parted soon afterwards, and Isabella trudged back to her home across the sunlit moor with slow and lagging step. Philippa's words had indeed "knocked at her heart and found her thoughts at home," and the old wound throbbed with a dull fierce ache. She, with her intimate knowledge of Francis, could picture to herself the whole course of recent events.