Mrs. Woodburn, who was in the judgment of the vicar's wife a good but curious woman, showed herself distressingly undistressed.
"Boy can look after herself, I guess," she said, a thought grimly.
She reported later to Mat what Mrs. Haggard had told her and what she had replied to Mrs. Haggard.
Old Mat agreed.
"She can bite all right," he said. "Trust Boy."
And Boy, as she walked down the hillside on leaving Mr. Silver and the old mare, felt like biting.
She was annoyed with Mr. Silver, annoyed with Joses, and, above all, annoyed with herself.
She had been mischievous, and now she was being punished for it.
She did not like Joses; and she did like being alone in the wood at dusk.