"Now what's to feed them is more nor I know; yet never a doubt I doubt it would clean break the colleen's heart must she part with her neat little beast."
The braying roused Hallam and Amy, also, from a night of dreamless sleep; and as they passed out from the musty house into the crisp air of a frosty morning, they felt more cheerful than they considered was quite the proper thing, under the circumstances. Then Amy looked at her brother and laughed.
"Isn't it splendid after the rain? and isn't it funny to be here? Yesterday it seemed as if the world had come to an end, and now it seems as if it had just been made new."
"'Every morn is a fresh beginning,'" quoted Hallam, who loved books better than his sister did.
"Let's go down to the gate, or place where a gate should be, and take a good look at our—home."
"All right. Though we've seen it at a distance, I suppose it will appear differently to us at near hand."
"And uglier. Oh, but it's horrid! horrid!" and with a sudden revulsion of feeling Amy buried her face in her hands and began to cry. "I hate it. I won't stay here. I will not. I'd rather go home and live in the old stable than here."
"That wouldn't have been a bad idea, only we shouldn't have been allowed."
"Who could have hindered that? Who'd want an empty stable?"