When dusk had fallen, the family seated itself round the fire and Edward Webb told of his night among the mountains. It was only pride which permitted Theresa to share the hearing with the two who had been more favoured than herself, but, realizing the dignity of silence, she tightened her lips and the clasp of her small hands and prepared to listen without enthusiasm; but slowly her lips relaxed, and leaving her little stool at the side of the hearth, she pushed past Grace, treading on her toes in the dimness, and stood before her father, with her hands on his knees. "Go on," she kept saying between his halting sentences. "So I had to stay there all night, you see." She frowned. "If you'd been a man in a book, you would have got down somehow." "But I'm not a man in a book, Theresa." "People tear up their clothes sometimes and make ropes of them, you know. In burning houses they use sheets; or you might have leapt from rock to rock." Grace giggled. "You baby! How could father do that in the dark?" "I think it was much braver to sit still all night," said Nancy. Theresa brightened. "Yes, that was brave. Did things come at you?" "How could they, dear?" "But they do. They come at me in the night, through the dark. They are thick and smooth, and come and come, and you can't stop them. They must have been there. Are you sure they weren't?" "Perhaps they were," he admitted. "Oo! nasty things! Tell me some more." "At last the dawn began to come, and I was very cold and stiff and wet. I heard a dog bark, and I thought, 'There must be people somewhere; I'll try to follow the sound.' So, somehow, I found my way to the mountain's foot, and I came to a stony track between the hills, and when I had walked a little way I saw a house--a low white house--and there, sitting beside the garden wall, was a boy." "How old?" Theresa whispered. "He is fifteen." "Almost a grown-up person," Theresa thought, and aloud she said again, "Go on." He obeyed, looking into the eager eyes which stared into his own. Her fingers twitched on his knee, and she was still gazing when his tale was ended. "Tell me about that boy again," she said. "I don't suppose I should be afraid of geese either when I got used to them, should I?" He was quite ready to agree that she could do anything. She sat on his knee. "Is he clever?" "I don't know." "I shouldn't think he is," she said comfortably. "He may be. He had a fine head, I remember." "Oh! What do you call a fine head?" "A good shape, good size. It's difficult to explain." "Oh!" she said again, and after a moment's consideration she added: "But he ought to be cleverer than me, because he's so much older. What coloured hair had he?" "I don't know. It was dark, I think--yes, like his father's." "And what colour was his mother's? You didn't tell me anything about her, Ned." "I told you everything I could remember, dear." "I meant about her looks."