"Then I should lose the sight of his face," said Susan spitefully. "Him and his mother be so cock-sure that she's going to take him." "A good few others besides Jarratt Weekes will have to face it," said Tabitha. "There's been a lot after that lovely she for years. They flaxen maidens make the men so silly as sheep. You won't have 'em running after you in a string, Susan, though you grow up never so comely." "I ban't so sartain of that," said Susan. "I know a chap or two----" She broke off and picked up her sunbonnet. "You ban't so bad for fifteen, sure enough," declared John Prout. "Now then, off you go, or else Walter will be away without 'e." The girl, who had left Lydford at half-past four in the morning, now returned quite cheerfully. As Agg's cart breasted White Hill and presently reached the high road, the sun came out and the weather promised a little peace. It was bright and still after the storm. Some belated Michaelmas daisies yet blossomed in the garden of Philip Weekes; a cat sat at the door in the sun. It recognized Susan and greeted her as she returned. In the rear of the house, clearly to be heard, her aunt's voice sounded shrill. She was talking to a neighbour, and Susan listened, but heard no good of herself. "The anointed, brazen, shameless trollop--the hussy! the minx! And to think what I've done and suffered for her! The dogs and beasts have more heart in 'em than her. Here be I--toiling day and night to make her a useful creature and teach her the way to grow up decent--and she turns on me, like the little wasp she is, and runs away, as if I was the plague. Let it happen once more--but once--an' so sure as the sun's in the sky, she shall go to the workhouse. 'Tis the evil blood in her veins--the toad. Her mother----" Here Susan intervened. "You can call me what you please, Aunt Hepsy," she said. "But don't you go giving my dead mother no names. I wasn't her fault anyway." "Back again, you saucy maggot! No--poor soul, you wasn't her fault; you was her eternal misfortune--same as you be mine. But don't you think I'm an angel, because I ban't--nothing but an unfortunate, down-trodden old woman. But I won't be rode roughshod over by a black imp like you, and so I tell 'e. You go once again, and God's my judge, you shan't come back. I won't let your shadow over my doorstep no more. You shan't bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, you scourge of a girl!" She rated, like some harsh-voiced machine that needs oil, and Susan, perfectly accustomed to these explosions, stood silent before her, waiting for a familiar hitch or gasp, that she knew would presently reduce her aunt to temporary silence. At last it came, just as Philip Weekes appeared from a visit to his poultry.