I went back, as he bade me, to Hildred. She had flung herself down on the ground where he left her, and was crying bitterly. I tried to take her hand and lift her up, but she pushed me away, turning from me and burying her face deeper in her hands. 'Hildred, don't cry like that.' She shook her head impatiently, and rocked herself backwards and forwards like a child. I did not at all know what to do for her. 'I wish I could comfort you, Hildred.' 'You can't,' she said with a gasping sob. 'No I'm afraid nobody could----' 'Cuthbert could,' she interrupted. It was the first time I had heard from herself that Cuthbert was more to her than I was, although, of course, I knew it before. The words stung me so much that I felt almost inclined to go away and leave her. But presently she took away her hands and looked up, pushing back the ruffled hair from her forehead. It was such a pitiful little face, her eyes wet and her cheeks crimsoned with tears. 'Oh dear, I am so unhappy,' she said. I took her hand again. 'Poor little Hildred, I'm very sorry for you.' 'It's all your father's fault,' said Hildred, with a little impatient stamp of her foot upon the ground. 'How could he be so wicked?' 'It was a mistake,' I said, after a moment's pause. 'It was cruel of him. Oh, poor Cuthbert! Why did you let him go?' 'I, Hildred?' 'Yes, how could you? He will just go and be killed in the wars, and then you will be sorry.' It was weak, almost unmanly, to mind her childish words, but I could not help it. I turned and walked away. The next moment she ran after me. 'Willie, I don't quite mean it; you know I don't.' She looked up with one of her own coaxing smiles. 'Don't be angry; I think being unhappy makes me cross, and I've got such a pain in my throat that I don't know what to do.' And then she burst out crying again. Poor little Hildred, poor child! That was a long, strange day. It seemed as if it ought by rights to be mid-day, when the sun had only been up for an hour or two, and it was difficult to understand how other people could be quietly waking up to their every-day business. My father was having his breakfast. A few labourers were going across the bridge to their work. A flock of sheep with a cloud of dust round them, moved slowly along the road on the way to their pasture. Even Granny, with the tears all gone and her face as placid as if it had never been ruffled, was stirring about her morning's work. 'I wonder where poor Cuthbert'ill be now,' she said at dinner time; 'miles away by this time, I reckon. You'll be feeling a bit down-hearted, Willie, sure, without him.' I felt rather more than a bit down-hearted, but it was no good telling Granny so.