"Do 'ee like being to Wastralls, Gray?" she asked that evening when, having left Sabina stationed at the yard gate, the girl had run up the road, to arrive breathless and panting.
"Oh yes, mammy, I do dearly love Aunt S'bina."
"Why was you runnin' so just now?"
Gray hesitated. Very few girls confide such matters to a mother's ear. Experience shall not teach. Each generation will make its own mistakes and gather its handful of treasures and keep its secrets. Gray was however very doubtful and unhappy and, having no girl of her own age to consult, she turned to her mother.
"It's Uncle Leadville. He's always wanting to come with me and I don't want'n. I dunno—" she paused.
"Iss?" said Mrs. Tom quietly.
"I dunno as Jim'll be agreeable."
"My dear, why don't you wear the ring that 'e give you?"
"I don't know, I don't like to. I"—she smiled anxiously, yet with a glimmering of humour—"I don't believe Uncle Leadville would like to see me wearin' a ring."
Having said so much, Gray was willing to make further admissions. "I feel afraid of Unde Leadville, he's always after me and his eyes seem to be watching me as if they was coming out of his sockets. I can't sleep by night, mammy, I—I'm always thinking about him and," she looked shyly away, unable in this moment of revelation to meet her mother's understanding eye, "I don't want to, I'm—" her voice sank, "I'm afraid."