She was unusually thoughtful as she sauntered slowly down the lane, for her visit to Dornton had brought back thoughts of her mother and grandfather, which had lately been kept in the background. She had to-day heard them spoken of with affection and admiration, instead of being passed over in silence. Waverley was very pleasant. Aunt Sarah was kind, and her Uncle John indulgent, but about her relations in Dornton there was scarcely a word spoken. It was strange. She remembered Delia's sparkling eyes as she talked of Mr Goodwin. That was stranger still. In the two visits Anna had paid to him, she had not discovered much to admire, and she had not been pleased with the appearance of Number 4 Back Row. It had seemed to her then that people called him "poor Mr Goodwin" with reason: he was poor, evidently, or he would not live all alone in such a very little house, with no servants, and work so hard, and get so tired and dusty as he had looked on that first evening she had seen him. Yet, perhaps, when she knew him as well as Delia did, she should be able to feel proud of him; and, at any rate, he stood in need of love and attention. She felt drawn to the Hunts and the Dornton people, who had known and loved her mother, and she resolved to make more efforts to go there frequently, and to risk displeasing Aunt Sarah and upsetting her arrangements. It would be very disagreeable, for she knew well that neither Mr Goodwin nor Dornton were favourite subjects at Waverley; and when things were going smoothly and pleasantly, it was so much nicer to leave them alone. However, she would try, and just then arriving at the farmyard gate, she dismissed those tiresome thoughts, and leaned over to look with great interest at the creatures within. As she did so, a little girl came out of the farmhouse and came slowly down the lane towards her. She was about twelve years old, very childish-looking for her age, and dressed in a fresh, yellow cotton frock, nearly covered by a big, white pinafore. Her little, round head was bare, and her black hair closely cropped like a boy's. She came on with very careful steps, her whole attention fixed on a plate she held firmly with both hands, which had a mug on it full of something she was evidently afraid to spill. Her eyes were so closely bent on this, that until she was near Anna she did not see her; and then, with a start, she came suddenly to a stand-still, not forgetting to preserve the balance of the mug and plate. It was a very nice, open, little face she raised towards Anna, with a childish and innocent expression, peppered thickly with freckles like a bird's egg, especially over the blunt, round nose. "Did you come from the Vicarage?" she inquired, gravely. "I'm staying there," replied Anna, "but I came over the fields just now from Dornton." "Those are puppa's fields," said the child, "and this is puppa's farm."