“She said she would come and bring her father,” said Willy from the grass, where he still lay at his mother's feet.
“It was bad manishment, my lad, to let the lass gang off agen with Sim to yon Fornside.”
Mattha is speaking with an insinuating smile.
“Could ye not keep her here? Out upon tha for a good to nowt.”
Willy makes no reply to the weaver's banter.
At that moment Rotha and her father are seen to enter the meadow by a gate at the lower end.
Ralph steps forward and welcomes the new-comers.
Sim has aged fast these last six months, but he is brighter looking and more composed. The dalespeople have tried hard to make up to him for their former injustice. He receives their conciliatory attentions with a somewhat too palpable effort at cordiality, but he is only less timid than before.
Ralph leads Rotha to a vacant chair near to where his mother sits.
“A blithe heart maks a blooming look,” says Mattha to the girl. Rotha's face deserves the compliment. To-day it looks as fresh as it is always beautiful. But there is something in it now that we have never before observed. The long dark lashes half hide and half reveal a tenderer light than has hitherto stolen into those deep brown eyes. The general expression of the girl's face is not of laughter nor yet of tears, but of that indescribable something that lies between these two, when, after a world of sadness, the heart is glad—the sunshine of an April day.