On the
foot-board sat two urchins of the Lovell family, 'making believe' to
drive imaginary horses, and yelling with all their might to Rhona
Boswell, whose laugh, musical as ever, showed that she enjoyed the
game as much as the children did. Sinfi was standing on a patch of
that peculiar kind of black ash which burnt grass makes, busy with a
fire, over which a tea-kettle was hanging from the usual iron
kettle-prop. Among the ashes left by a previous fire her bantam-cock
Pharaoh was busy pecking, scratching, and calling up imaginary hens
to feast upon his imaginary 'finds.' I entered the Dell, and before
Sinfi saw me I was close to her.
She was muttering to the refractory fire as though it were a live
thing, and asking it why it refused to burn beneath the kettle. A
startled look, partly of pleasure and partly of something like alarm,
came over her face as she perceived me. I drew her aside and told her
all that had happened in regard to Winifred's appearance as a beggar
in London. A strange expression that was new to me overspread her
features, and I thought I heard her whisper to herself, 'I will, I
will.
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