A little weight of sadness was dragging at her heart, but she would not give it place or so much as acknowledge its presence.

She hummed a carol as she went, stepping lightly through the muddy fields.
The frost had given place to an unseasonable warmth, and there had been some heavy rain earlier in the day.

It was threatening to rain again.

In fact, as she mounted her second stile, the first drops of what promised to be a sharp shower began to fall.

She cast a hasty glance around for shelter, and spied some twenty yards away against the hedge a hut which had probably been erected for the use of some shepherd.