Priscilla was vaguely disturbed. Softness of speech and manner she understood, for she had ever been a favourite with the landed gentlefolk of Strathgarth; and, because she understood them, she detected the false note in Gaunt’s would-be correctness. Yet she pushed the distrust aside; for this man had been away from Garth for five long years, had seen the mysteries hidden in the beyond, and doubtless he could tell her of them.

As a child wipes the school-day’s sums from its slate, Priscilla lost the record of her working and her playtime hours. The grey serenity of Garth, the sweetness of its roadside gardens, the slow, rich gossip of its folk—these things went by her. She forgot the low, musical humming of the churn, the look of the butter as it lay, round and golden as a kingcup, on the stone tables of the dairy. She heard no longer the splash of milk into the foamy pail, the lowing of the kine as they gave their evensong of praise.

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