“She’d ’a loved me better,” he muttered, and turned to his milking. I left him and went to talk to his father. When the latter’s four beasts were finished, George’s light still shone in the other shed. I went and found him at the fifth, the last cow. When at length he had finished he put down his pail, and going over to poor Julia, stood scratching her back, and her poll, and her nose, looking into her big, startled eye and murmuring. She was afraid; she jerked her head, giving him a good blow on the cheek with her horn. “You can’t understand them,” he said sadly, rubbing his face, and looking at me with his dark, serious eyes. “I never knew I couldn’t understand them. I never thought about it——till. But you know, Cyril, she led me on.” I laughed at his rueful appearance. CHAPTER VIII THE RIOT OF CHRISTMAS For some weeks, during the latter part of November and the beginning of December, I was kept indoors by a cold. At last came a frost which cleared the air and dried the mud. On the second Saturday before Christmas the world was transformed; tall, silver and pearl-grey trees rose pale against a dim-blue sky, like trees in some rare, pale Paradise; the whole woodland was as if petrified in marble and silver and snow; the holly-leaves and long leaves of the rhododendron were rimmed and spangled with delicate tracery. When the night came clear and bright, with a moon among the hoar-frost, I rebelled against confinement, and the house. No longer the mists and dank weather made the home dear; tonight even the glare of the distant little iron works was not visible, for the low clouds were gone, and pale stars blinked from beyond the moon. Lettie was staying with me; Leslie was in London again. She tried to remonstrate in a sisterly fashion when I said I would go out. “Only down to the Mill,” said I. Then she hesitated a while—said she would come too. I suppose I looked at her curiously, for she said: “Oh—if you would rather go alone——!” “Come—come—yes, come!” said I, smiling to myself. Lettie was in her old animated mood. She ran, leaping over rough places, laughing, talking to herself in French. We came to the Mill. Gyp did not bark. I opened the outer door and we crept softly into the great dark scullery, peeping into the kitchen through the crack of the door.