Then Lowry unstrapped the cloak that was bound behind his saddle, and wrapped it about Merrylips, and brought her back to Larkland very tenderly. Better still, he would not let a word of reproof be spoken to her. The child was punished enough, he said, with the weariness and fright that she had suffered. He was kind, and Merrylips knew it. But after that night, by order of this same kind Will Lowry, Merrylips was never allowed to set foot outside the garden, unless one of the servants was with her. So never again did she have a chance to run away to Walsover. CHAPTER XI THE COMING OF HERBERT LOWRY There was no singing of carols nor eating of plum-pudding and mince pies at Larkland that Christmas, you may be sure. Mistress Lowry said that to keep Christmas was to bow the knee to Baal. Merrylips did not know what that meant, though she thought it had a sinful sound. But at least she did know that on Christmas Day she had nothing better than stewed mutton for dinner, and she was given extra tasks that kept her busy till nightfall. Indeed Merrylips had so many tasks, while she was under Mistress Lowry's care, that she looked back on her life at Walsover as one long holiday. She had to spin, and to knit, and to read aloud from dull books about predestination and election and other deep religious matters. Worst of all, she had to sit quietly for an hour each day and think about the sinful state of her heart and how she might amend it. If she had not been as sunny-tempered and brave a little soul as ever lived, she would surely have grown fretful and morbid, shut up as she was with poor, sickly, fanatical Mistress Lowry. Strangely enough, in those dull winter days, Merrylips was much comforted by Will Lowry, who came almost every week on a visit from London. He seemed to like her the better, because she had tried to run away. Once he brought her from London a silken hood. At first he could not get her to wear it, because it was the gift of a rebel. But later, when Mistress Lowry took the silver ring away from Merrylips, saying that it was a vain, worldly gaud, he bade her give it back to the little girl. After that Merrylips was glad to please him by wearing the hood. Will Lowry called her Merrylips, too, and that was a comfort, for Mistress Lowry and all the household called her Sybil, a name by which she scarcely knew herself. Better still, when he rode about the fields and farms that belonged to Larkland, he would often take her, boy-fashion, on the saddle before him, or when he walked in Cuckstead village, he would have her tramping at his side. He did not scold her for scrambling over walls and climbing trees. Instead he seemed pleased with her strength and fearlessness. Once, when they had come in from a long walk in the chill winter weather, and were supping alone on bread and cheese, Lowry said, half playfully:--