Cuthbert was collecting too, but he was collecting the dates on pennies, so he didn't feel inclined to go and sit with Edward; and it was just as he was wondering what to do that he saw Doris turn the corner. For a moment he thought that he would pretend not to see her, but she was all alone, and it suddenly occurred to him that it would be rather a good idea to take her out to tea at Uncle Joe's.
So he stopped and asked her, and she was very glad, because she had nothing particular to do; and she told him all about St Uncus and the fire and what it was like being nearly burnt to death.
"Let's cut across the fields," she said, "past old Mother Hubbard's. It's jolly cold. I think it's going to snow."
"I hope it is," said Cuthbert. "But it's not so cold as the day on which we found the ice-men."
But it was quite cold enough, with the horses in the fields standing dismally under the naked hedges, and the black north-easter crumbling the ridges of the plough-lands until they looked like pale-coloured powdered chocolate.
"I shall be jolly glad," said Cuthbert, "when we get to Uncle Joe's," and just then they passed Mother Hubbard's—a melancholy house standing by itself, with all its blinds and curtains drawn.
It was always like that, and behind it were some ruined stables, with a tin roof that flapped up and down; and a big yellow dog on a long chain ran out and yelped at them as they passed. This was called Mother Hubbard's house, because it belonged to a Miss Hubbard who lived there all by herself, and who had allowed nobody to enter the door since her father had died fifty years ago.
He had been a proud old general with a bad temper; and some people said that he had driven Miss Hubbard mad, but other people said that she was only queer, and hated everybody except her dog. Occasionally she could be seen peering round one of the blinds, or feeding her dog in the ruined stables; and once a week she went into the town with a big bag to do her shopping. The shop-people said that she was very polite, and so did the postman, who sometimes took her a letter. But she always kept her own counsel, and nobody could ever make her talk. Why she lived like that, nobody knew. Some people said that it was because she was so poor, and because her father had made her promise never to let people know how poor she was. But other people said that she was really rather rich, and that she must have had some great trouble. She was very old—nearly eighty—although her eyes were clear and so were her cheeks; but there were still a few people who remembered her as a girl galloping on horseback over the fields.
"Silly old thing," said Doris, as they left her house behind them. "I shouldn't be surprised if she was a witch."
But Cuthbert said that there weren't any such things, and perhaps she had killed somebody and had a guilty conscience.