Was it any wonder that his thoughts should revert to the earlier hours of the evening?
that he should hear again in fancy the soft voice that said, "I am Valmai Powell," and that he should picture to himself the clustering curls that escaped from the red hood?
The old house, with its long passages and large rooms, was full of those nameless sounds which fill the air in the quiet of night.

He heard his father's footsteps as he paced up and down in his study, he heard the tick-tack of the old clock on the stairs, the bureau creaked, the candle spluttered, but there was no human voice to break the silence, With a yawn he rose, stretching his long legs, and, throwing back his broad shoulders, made his way along the dark passage which led into the kitchen, where the farm servants were seated at supper.

Betto moved the beehive chair into a cosy corner beside the fire for the young master, the men-servants all tugged their forelocks, and the women rose to make a smiling bob-curtsey.
"Have some cawl,[2] Ser!" said Betto, selecting a shining black bowl and spoon.
"Not to-night, after all that fried ham; but another night I want nothing better for supper." "Well, there's nothing will beat cawl, that's certain," said Ebben, the head servant, beginning with long-drawn noisy sups to empty his own bowl.
"Finished the turnips to-day ?" asked Cardo.
"Oh, yes," said Ebben, with a slight tone of reproof in his voice; "the work goes on though you may not be at home, Ser.

I consider there is no piece of land on this earth, no, nor on any other earth, better farmed than Brynderyn.

Eh ?" and he looked defiantly at Betto, between whom and himself there was a continual war of words.
"Well, I suppose so, indeed," said Betto; "_you_ say so often enough, whatever, and what you say must be right." There was such an insidious mixture of flattery and sarcasm in her words that, for a moment Ebben was at a loss what to answer, so Malen, the milkmaid, took the opportunity of changing the subject.
"There's tons of bread will be baked on Monday," she said, "ready for the Sassiwn.