She felt vaguely sorry for these girls; but she realized nothing of their life. Nor did she associate funerals and illness with herself. As the convolvulus stands in apparent changelessness in a silent rose-and-white eternity, so she seemed to herself a stationary being. But the convolvulus has budded and bloomed and closed again while you thought her still, and she dies--the rayed and rosy cup so full of airy sweetness--she dies in a day. * * * * * Hazel got up from her chair by the fire and went restlessly, with a rustle as of innumerable autumn leaves, to the hall door. She gazed through the glass, and saw the sad feather-flights of snow wandering and hesitating, and finally coming to earth. They held to their individuality as flakes as long as they could, it seemed; but the end came to all, and they were merged in earth and their own multitudes. Hazel opened the door and stood on the threshold, so that snow-flakes flattened themselves on the yellow roses of her dress. Outside there was no world, only a waste of grey and white. Like leaves on a dead bird, the wrappings of white grew deeper over Undern. Hazel shivered in the cold wind off the hill, and saw Undern Pool curdling and thickening in the frost. No sound came across the outspread country. There were no roads near Undern except its own cart track; there were no railways within miles. Nothing moved except the snow-flakes, fulfilling their relentless destiny of negation. She saw them only, and heard only the raised voices in the house arguing about herself. 'I mun go,' she said, strong in her spirit of freedom, remote and withdrawn. 'I mun stay,' she amended, weak in her undefended smallness, and very tired. She turned back to the fire. But the instinct that had awakened as childhood died clamoured within her and would not let her rest. She softly took off the silk dress, and put on her own. She picked up the wreath-frames with a sigh and opened the door again. She would have a long, wild walk home, but she could creep in through her bedroom window, which would not latch, and she could make a great fire of dry broom and brew some tea. 'And I'll let Foxy in and eat a loaf, I will, for I'm clemmed!' she said. She slipped out through the door that had seen so many human lives come and go. Even as she went, the door betrayed her, for Reddin, coming from the kitchen, saw her through the upper panes. Chapter 5 'I be going home-along,' she said, but he pulled her in and shut the door. 'Why did you want to go?' 'I'm alost in this grand place.' 'Your hair's grander than anything in the place. And your eyes are like sherry.' 'Truth on your life?' 'Yes. Now you'd better change your dress again.' He reached down an old silver candlestick, very tarnished. 'You can go upstairs. There's a glass in the first room you come to. Then we'll have supper.'