The wind dropped that afternoon, but only temporarily. It rose again so much during the night that by the next morning the grounds looked, to use little Annis's expression, "quite untidy". "And down in the village, or just beyond it," said Mark, who had been for an early stroll, "at one place it really looks as if it had been snowing. The road skirts that old farmhouse; you know it, father? I forget the name--there's a grand cherry orchard there." "'Mayling Farm,' you must mean," said Mr. Raynald. "Farmer Giles's. Oh, by the way, that reminds me, Sybil," but a glance round the table made him stop short. They were at breakfast. He scarcely felt inclined to relate the tragic story before the younger children, "they might look frightened or run away if they came across the poor fellow," he reflected. "I will tell Sybil about it afterwards." Easter holidays were not yet over, though the governess had returned, so regular routine was set aside, and the whole of the young party, Ellinor included, spent that morning in a scramble among the hills. The children seemed untirable, and set off again somewhere or other in the afternoon. Sybil was busy with her mother, writing letters and orders to be despatched to London, so that towards four o'clock or so, when Miss March, having finished her own correspondence, entered the drawing-room, she found it deserted. Sybil had promised to practise some duets with her, and while waiting on the chance of her coming, Ellinor seated herself at the piano and began to play--nothing very important--just snatches of old airs which she wove into a kind of half-dreamy harmony, one melting into another as they occurred to her. All at once a shadow fell on the keys, and then she remembered having heard the door softly open a moment or two before--so softly, that she had not looked round, imagining it to be the wind, which, though fallen now, still lingered about. Now her ideas took another shape. "It is Sybil, no doubt," she thought with a smile. "She is going to make me jump," and she waited, half expecting to feel Sybil's hands suddenly clasped over her eyes from behind. But this was not to be the mode of attack, apparently, though she heard what sounded like stealthy footsteps. "You need not try to startle me, Sybbie," she exclaimed laughingly, without turning or ceasing to play, "I hear you." It was no laughing voice which replied. On the contrary, a sigh, almost a groan, close to her made her look up sharply--a trifle indignant perhaps at the joke being carried so far--and she saw, a pace or two from her only, the figure of an old man--a white-haired, somewhat bent form, a worn face with wistful blue eyes--gazing at her. She had scarcely time to feel frightened, for almost instantaneously Sybil's "ghost" recurred to her memory.