The heather was at its purplest, the furze at its yellowest, the grasshoppers chirped loud enough for birds, the snakes hissed like little engines, and Elfride at first felt lively.

Sitting at ease upon Pansy, in her orthodox riding-habit and nondescript hat, she looked what she felt.

But the mercury of those days had a trick of falling unexpectedly.

First, only for one minute in ten had she a sense of depression.

Then a large cloud, that had been hanging in the north like a black fleece, came and placed itself between her and the sun.