One June evening, she sat out of doors under the yew-tree, knitting. She was pale still from her recent illness; and her languor, joined to the fact of her black dress, made her look more than usually interesting. She was no longer the buoyant self-sufficient Susan, equal to every occasion. The men were bringing in the cows to be milked, and Michael was about in the yard giving orders and directions with somewhat the air of a master, for the farm belonged of right to Willie, and Susan had succeeded to the guardianship of her brother. Michael and she were to be married as soon as she was strong enough—so, perhaps, his authoritative manner was justified; but the labourers did not like it, although they said little. They remembered a stripling on the farm, knowing far less than they did, and often glad to shelter his ignorance of all agricultural matters behind their superior knowledge. They would have taken orders from Susan with far more willingness; nay, Willie himself might have commanded them; and from the old hereditary feeling toward the owners of land, they would have obeyed him with far greater cordiality than they now showed to Michael. But Susan was tired with even three rounds of knitting, and seemed not to notice, or to care, how things went on around her; and Willie—poor Willie!—there he stood lounging against the door-sill, enormously grown and developed, to be sure, but with restless eyes and ever-open mouth, and every now and then setting up a strange kind of howling cry, and then smiling vacantly to himself at the sound he had made. As the two old labourers passed him, they looked at each other ominously, and shook their heads. “Willie, darling,” said Susan, “don’t make that noise—it makes my head ache.” She spoke feebly, and Willie did not seem to hear; at any rate, he continued his howl from time to time. “Hold thy noise, wilt’a?” said Michael, roughly, as he passed near him, and threatening him with his fist. Susan’s back was turned to the pair. The expression of Willie’s face changed from vacancy to fear, and he came shambling up to Susan, who put her arm round him, and, as if protected by that shelter, he began making faces at Michael. Susan saw what was going on, and, as if now first struck by the strangeness of her brother’s manner, she looked anxiously at Michael for an explanation. Michael was irritated at Willie’s defiance of him, and did not mince the matter. “It’s just that the fever has left him silly—he never was as wise as other folk, and now I doubt if he will ever get right.” Susan did not speak, but she went very pale, and her lip quivered. She looked long and wistfully at Willie’s face, as he watched the motion of the ducks in the great stable-pool. He laughed softly to himself every now and then. “Willie likes to see the ducks go overhead,” said Susan, instinctively adopting the form of speech she would have used to a young child.