It was only a trifling incident, but she was annoyed to notice how openly and instantly the girls had sided with Bess.

She felt too glum for speech, and as Verity was tired and disinclined to talk, they tramped along in silence.
They had been winding steadily uphill for some miles and were now on the heath from which Ryton took its name.

The ground fell steeply to the west, showing glimpses of a great river in the valley below, where the still-leafless woods had burst here and there into faint tokens of spring.

Beyond the river rose the characteristic grey hills of the neighborhood, with their stone walls and sheepfolds and stretches of moorland, looking a little hazy in the afternoon light, but with patches of yellow gorse catching the sunshine.

Ryton was a delightful little village.