She was a handsome-looking woman, with white hair and flashing dark eyes, but with an unhappy face, and she regarded Ruffie with great intensity.
"What a lovely little face! Who is he?" she asked abruptly.
Ruffie took off his cap with a gallant air.
"My name is Rufus Holme," he said. "I wish I could lend you my pony to ride, but I can't walk without him, and I'm too heavy for Steppie to carry."
She smiled at him. She had given an involuntary start when she heard his name, but quickly recovered her equanimity.
"Thank you for the wish," she said; then, turning to Anstice, she asked if there was any house within her reach where she could rest.
Anstice considered. "I think there is a small farm round the corner, about a quarter of an hour's climb from here."
"I can't do it," she said with a little impatient sigh; "I must just wait till my man comes back. You might sit down and enliven my solitude, if you can spare the time. We are strangers, but it is a lovely afternoon. It is the loneliness that I dislike so much."
Anstice was quite willing to oblige, and Ruffie's pony was only too ready to rest. She took the little boy off his pony into her lap, and he, as well as she, talked to this strange lady of the Fells which they loved so much. The stranger did not give her name, and asked no more personal questions.
But presently Anstice said: